Azuma seating

[trebor79]

People clearly are voting with their feet to some extent as the airlines are all upping their capacity to Newcastle and (particularly) Edinburgh whilst cutting it elsewhere. The trains might still be full now but if the fares stay as high as they are and comfort (and reliability) remains poor, more and more people will give up on LNER. Remember a lot more of the travel now is discretionary compared to five years ago, which means it’ll take a lot less for people to give up on the train now than it did then.

I used to use the train almost exclusively for business travel. Now I almost always use my car:
1. Awful seating on Monday trains.
2. Overcrowding
3. Often unreliable catering provision, and often a somewhat poor selection when there is catering. Absolute rip-off prices at stations (paid £2.59 for a small bottle of water this week).
4. The car is so much cheaper, especially now kme driving and EV. Work will pay for a train ticket, but I can claim a minimum of 25p/mile and up to 45p for the first 10k miles annually for journeys that cost me a few pence per mile in "fuel"
5. Living in East Anglia the car is often quicker or same journey time as the train.

Would better seats entice me back? Certainly it's part of the puzzle but there needs to be more consistency and quality over things like catering, cleanliness and crowding.

 

[takno]

People clearly are voting with their feet to some extent as the airlines are all upping their capacity to Newcastle and (particularly) Edinburgh whilst cutting it elsewhere. The trains might still be full now but if the fares stay as high as they are and comfort (and reliability) remains poor, more and more people will give up on LNER. Remember a lot more of the travel now is discretionary compared to five years ago, which means it’ll take a lot less for people to give up on the train now than it did then.

The numbers travelling by train from Edinburgh to London have also exploded. Everybody just seems to want a piece of Edinburgh at the moment. God knows why - I couldn't afford to stay here if I didn't own a flat.

Whether people will continue to willingly use LNER given the seat and pricing situation is anybody's guess - I suspect there may be an essentially never-ending supply of people who haven't tried it before, keep forgetting, or just don't have the agency to argue with their company's travel supplier.

 

[irish_rail]

I used to dread having to travel Plymouth to London, but since the seat bases have all collapsed I even dread having to travel to Exeter. If ever something wasn't fit for purpose it is the LNER and GWR seats in standard class. Money needs to be found from somewhere to remedy this. We can't continue for the next 25 years with these seats, they are beyond abysmal.

 

[crablab]

We can't continue for the next 25 years with these seats, they are beyond abysmal.

I entirely agree.
Thread in the Speculative section on this very topic: https://www.railforums.co.uk/threads/should-the-gwr-iet-fleet-be-refurbished.276335/

 

[BRX]

These seats are really dreadful now. It's not just a matter of firmness but the fact that now you can feel you in are sitting on a horizontal bar with depressions fore and aft of it, and virtually no padding on top of it. It's made me inclined to avoid LNER on long journeys to & from Scotland including the highland chieftain. And I've just discovered, they've got the same things on TPE 397s.

 

[Blindtraveler]

Even when brand new I couldn't do more than an hour on them, meaning that it's either another operator or expensive outrageously expensive first class, and the other day I got a fed up of the same issue on gwr when out on diversion bashing duties from London to Swindon on the 27th, went to the toilet just on departure from Redding and did not return to my seat

 

[Flying Snail]

Even when brand new I couldn't do more than an hour on them, meaning that it's either another operator or expensive outrageously expensive first class, and the other day I got a fed up of the same issue on gwr when out on diversion bashing duties from London to Swindon on the 27th, went to the toilet just on departure from Redding and did not return to my seat

It's certainly saying something that the most comfortable seat on the train is the sh*tter.

 

[D6130]

or expensive outrageously expensive first class,

IMHO, the first class seats on Azumas and IETs are just as uncomfortable as those in standard....if not more so.

 

[superalbs]

IMHO, the first class seats on Azumas and IETs are just as uncomfortable as those in standard....if not more so.

True. You spend all that money, and it's still rubbish. A bit more tolerable, but still rubbish.

 

[danbarjon]

As a regular on LNER Azumas and usually first class I've never had an issue, maybe I’ve just been really lucky with my seats (I usually pick M10) but overall they are really good trains…

 

[blackfive460]

And I've just discovered, they've got the same things on TPE 397s.

The 802s are just as bad.

 

[Welly]

YouTuber Simon Anderson describes the GWR IET as the worst of the newer trains he travelled on during 2024.

 

[Mikey C]

IMHO, the first class seats on Azumas and IETs are just as uncomfortable as those in standard....if not more so.

The first class seats are WAY better than the standard ones.

That doesn't mean they're brilliant, but they have a decent padded cushion, so there's no bar poking through.

 

[class26]

The first class seats are WAY better than the standard ones.

That doesn't mean they're brilliant, but they have a decent padded cushion, so there's no bar poking through.

and the recline means it is possible to adjust to your preferred position rather than sit bolt upright for hours on end

 

[D6130]

The first class seats are WAY better than the standard ones.

That doesn't mean they're brilliant, but they have a decent padded cushion, so there's no bar poking through.

and the recline means it is possible to adjust to your preferred position rather than sit bolt upright for hours on end

Maybe....but the backrest is still - for me at any rate - appallingly uncomfortable, whatever the recline position.

 

[ChilternTurbo]

I hope headrest pads/cushions in first class are replaced soon. I know the previous ones were next to useless and most seemed to end up in the luggage rack but when they weren't falling off, they did add some comfort.

 

[Bossworld]

I've had a hideous run down on the flying Scotsman this morning.

Train nowhere near capacity but I'd booked through work's portal and forgot to try and get my usual standard seat in the rear half of coach K. I've done the journey over 100 times, majority in coach K (creature of habit I guess).

I'm OK with the LNER seats (though starting to find more and more have got worn seat backs which flex) and seem to be in the minority who find them more comfortable than Lumo, though both are effectively ironing boards.

But today - picked a seat in coach J and over certain sections it's been juddering violently for the past two hours. Found this previous thread, interestingly also coach J so maybe I'm on the same set! https://www.railforums.co.uk/threads/bad-ride-quality-in-some-80x-carriages.267235/page-2

 

[800001]

I've had a hideous run down on the flying Scotsman this morning.

Train nowhere near capacity but I'd booked through work's portal and forgot to try and get my usual standard seat in the rear half of coach K. I've done the journey over 100 times, majority in coach K (creature of habit I guess).

I'm OK with the LNER seats (though starting to find more and more have got worn seat backs which flex) and seem to be in the minority who find them more comfortable than Lumo, though both are effectively ironing boards.

But today - picked a seat in coach J and over certain sections it's been juddering violently for the past two hours. Found this previous thread, interestingly also coach J so maybe I'm on the same set! https://www.railforums.co.uk/threads/bad-ride-quality-in-some-80x-carriages.267235/page-2

It will be the type of bogie on that carriage.
K most likely has a powered bogie, where J is unpowered.
There is a difference in size and weight to them.
Ride quality is atrocious in the carriages that are unpowered especially over pointwork.

 

[800Travel]

Anyone got a photo of the new headrests in first please? Thanks!

 

[takno]

Anyone got a photo of the new headrests in first please? Thanks!

There weren't any when I went on them last week. I can't see how anything thicker than a basic antimacassar would avoid just being in the way tbh

 

[Haywain]

There weren't any when I went on them last week.

There were new headrest on one train I used last week, but not on another.

I can't see how anything thicker than a basic antimacassar would avoid just being in the way tbh

They are a little bit thicker and cushioned, but nothing like the old ones. There is nothing objectionable about them.

 

[takno]

There were new headrest on one train I used last week, but not on another.

They are a little bit thicker and cushioned, but nothing like the old ones. There is nothing objectionable about them.

Sounds good. Whilst I don't think they're bad for comfort, the seats do look a bit plain at the moment.

In terms of experience, since it's the first time I've done one for a year or so:

The first class lounge in Edinburgh was struggling for free seats, which suggests that they need to stick a few more in. The staff response was to bully people towards their train a full half hour before departure time (in several cases suggesting that she wasn't going to let them in because they "needed to rush" to get to platform 9, which is pretty ridiculous. I was only really there to fill my takeaway coffee mug and grab a couple of snacks because there was a catering fault reported on the train (I appreciate that this is against the rules, but didn't seem unreasonable in the circumstances).

The train itself had no hot food or drinks, although the staff after Newcastle seem to have decided that they could manage the crumpets. I'd have liked the curry, but the sandwiches were okay, and the staff were pleasant and didn't have any problems with giving stuff out. If anything the lack of hot drinks made the service faster and more frequent, so was a bonus. I might of course have felt differently if I hadn't filled a cup at Edinburgh.

Slightly odd that so many seats aren't available in the seat picker, even though they turn out to be available on the day. It seems basically impossible to get a single seat at the time of booking, although I haven't ever had a problem switching into one on the train. I'm not particularly complaining about this, since if the single seats were made available they would probably all be taken by the time I came to book anyway. It makes a bit of a mockery of the whole mandatory reservations thing though, and renders the fancy seat picker pretty pointless.

Overall, good experience, no real problems even with the equipment failure. Not super-premium but fine for the price.

 

[tfw756rider]

Richard Bowker of Green Signals has interviewed David Horne, Managing Director of London North Eastern Railway, and at 29:15, David says that in the short term, they're looking to restore the intended amount of "squishyness" of the seats, but for the longer term, they're talking with Hitachi and Agility Trains about a possible better seating option.

 

[rangersac]

Just been on one of my roughly biennial UK visits and from the train journeys that I undertook using long distance operators, the seating (and ride quality) on the Azumas was far inferior to that on the Pendos and Meridians.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Richard Bowker of Green Signals has interviewed David Horne, Managing Director of London North Eastern Railway, and at 29:15, David says that in the short term, they're looking to restore the intended amount of "squishyness" of the seats, but for the longer term, they're talking with Hitachi and Agility Trains about a possible better seating option.

I guess new cushions. Hopefully the TfW one*.

*"1st" on 730s also have that better cushion.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: Wednesday at 08:40 ==

Just been on one of my roughly biennial UK visits and from the train journeys that I undertook using long distance operators, the seating (and ride quality) on the Azumas was far inferior to that on the Pendos and Meridians.

Did another 807 yesterday, with the hugely superior seating it's like a different train. Far prefer them over Pendolinos. But the ride on the WCML is fine (basically the same feel as a 350), so maybe the issue is bad track quality elsewhere?

 

[BRX]

Just yesterday I took a GWR IET out of Paddington and found myself on a seat just as bad as the worst of LNER's. I was wondering if I should have done the journey as far as Reading on the slower but more comfortable Elizabeth line.

 

[Flying Snail]

Rubbish Interview, 90% managementspeak PR waffle, helped along by a chuumy interviewer. That's what you get these days, Youtube influencers such as this chap and that Geoff lad who are given access because they are happy to toe the company line in exchange.

 

[superalbs]

Richard Bowker of Green Signals has interviewed David Horne, Managing Director of London North Eastern Railway, and at 29:15, David says that in the short term, they're looking to restore the intended amount of "squishyness" of the seats, but for the longer term, they're talking with Hitachi and Agility Trains about a possible better seating option.

But the "intended squishyness" of this seat design is very poor, so I don't really see what that would solve.

 

[Blindtraveler]

I would have said a better use of public money would be to immediately reseat these once a better option has been identified. Logical better option would be the seating fitted to the new Avanti units, not perfect by any means, but enough to certainly make me travel standard rather than first when writing for anything more than an hour with lner

 

[BurtonM]

I was thinking the same thing, the 'intended' design is still abysmal - the seats aren't fit for the job. The standard should be an equal to the 90/mk4, and nothing sort of completely replacing the seats can offer a good result.