High 'Z' rating trains (ease and comfort of falling asleep on different classes)

Thought I'd do a rolling stock preference thread with a twist: Having manged to fall asleep at the unoccupied table seat on a class 153, it occurred to me some trains are quite pleasant to drift into sleep on, and this is only loosely correlated with their comfort for being awake. For example, even if relatively tired I find IC70 seats difficult to fall asleep on, but for a person of my height the standard class seats on a Meridian have the advantage - the opposite way to if I was doing the journey awake.
I also quite rate Northern's 156 refurb for this purpose. I was on one, rather early in the morning and a combination of the relative height of seat to table, coupled with the heating being on and the window being closed but a very slight draft coming through made it a very comfortable experience!

Needless to say Mersey pacers are still the worst of all - any thoughts on the 'Z' rating of different units and coaching stock compared to it's awake rateability?

Edit: and before someone says it, I'm well aware of opinions of routes and classes not properly counting if asleep, or in the dark, or whatever. Seems to me rule one of bashing is there are no rules, rule number two is let's make up some rules whereby certain things 'don't count'. This is purely a fun thread of sorts.

Class 365's after 10 pints of beer work a trick.

Can I suggest that for classes with different classes we should maybe give them two ratings - e.g. it’s probably much easier to dose off in a fully reclined first class VT390 seat vs a standard class seat on the same stock. I imagine GW HSTs would be similar, though I’ve never traveled in first on one

Southeastern 375 Electrostar in mid winter- Heating was on after a long day train bashing round London. I felt really cosy, and i must of drifted off to sleep cuz next thing i knew i was 3 stations beyond my home stop. Dad had to drive 15 minutes to pick me up Haha

I can see this turning into a seat discussion already!

The Voyagers are fairly OK in that regard I seem to recall. Then again it might have been the scenery between Birmingham and Bristol that caused me to drop off. On the flip side, and while I've not spent much time in them, the headrests on the 175s look like they are specifically designed to prevent anyone reaching the land of nod.

Train Maniac said:

Southeastern 375 Electrostar in mid winter- Heating was on after a long day train bashing round London. I felt really cosy, and i must of drifted off to sleep cuz next thing i knew i was 3 stations beyond my home stop. Dad had to drive 15 minutes to pick me up Haha

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+1 for the older Electrostars. The 2+2 seats in some of the 377s become weirdly comfortable when you're a bit sleepy at 1am. Unfortunately many a soul has ended up at the wrong station - never managed it myself yet, but it'll happen!

150's on the Manchester-Buxton route, when it's nice and quiet in the evening and you can stretch across a couple of seats!

Definitely fell asleep on a lot of 156's...

Sleeping on trains.. One subject I am an expert on!

I once lived in Fife and quickly learned to only get on a Fife circle train after a night out in Edinburgh.

Worst case, you ended up back where you started (Edinburgh) in a 150 having done a loop of the Fife circle). One guy woke me up and found it amusing when I went ****!

I could sleep on anything other than a TurboStar. 158s and 156 were comfortable trains.

Got me in trouble though. One attempt to get home ended up in Aberdeen and on the return journey, fell asleep again. Newcastle!! Never got on a GNER or Virgin HST while drunk after that.

The original seats in the 158s were good for a nap. Was supposed to get off in Kirkcaldy but ended up in Dundee. Lost a potential girlfriend in that instance!

By far, the best trains to sleep on is the Enterprise stock between Belfast and Dublin.

Standard class ICE seats are what I have found best for a doss on, I remember a couple of months ago I was on a 3/4am off Berlin and managed to get a good doss in until I had to change.
Sam

The original 1st class seats on a ScotRail 170 were incredibly comfortable and great for a kip.

I've fallen asleep on Pendolino's a couple of times, but mainly due to tiredness and having a few beers because I usually find the seats uncomfortable! On one occasion after departing Euston I remember being wide awake for over an hour. I had to change trains at Crewe to get to Liverpool (still not sure why I didn't get a direct train!) so I was trying very hard to stay awake and remember approaching Stafford; but next thing I know is someone was attempting to wake me up several minutes after arriving into Manchester Piccadilly!

Fortunately the last train of the day from Piccadilly was a TPE service that was running about 20 minutes late, and I managed to get that back to Liverpool!

150's are good for falling unconscious on too! I got the last train of the day from Manchester Oxford Road once and ended up at Liverpool Lime Street, where I didn't want to be. (I'm guessing I fell asleep before the train even got to Warrington). That resulted in an expensive taxi ride home!

Funnily enough, the one and only time I have got a sleeper train was from Prague to Amsterdam. It was a 12 hour journey, but I had cabin to myself with a comfortable bed; but I hardly got any sleep because I was too excited about going on a sleeper train for the first time.

I spent most of the journey with the light turned off and looking out of the window into the pitch dark with a beer in my hand. Every couple of hours the train pulled into a city. Berlin at 1am is lovely all lit up at night. At about 4am we got to Hanover, where I observed a homeless man take a wee all over the tracks, rummage through a bin where he appeared to find a half eaten burger or kebab which he ate, then he went sleep on a bench on the platform!

By the time we got to Amsterdam at about 10am I was knackered!

alangla said:

Can I suggest that for classes with different classes we should maybe give them two ratings - e.g. it’s probably much easier to dose off in a fully reclined first class VT390 seat vs a standard class seat on the same stock. I imagine GW HSTs would be similar, though I’ve never traveled in first on one

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Very easy to fall asleep in first. Saw my mate off at Newport and woke up in Port Talbot, didn't even see Bridgend...

158 with original seats for me. I used to commute into Birmingham from Leicester years ago and would wake up at Landore Street junction every day.

Know of someone who fell asleep on a 315 and missed Brentwood. Three times in one journey

After an all-night spotting trip on Doncaster station, we were hoping to see all the industry en route to Sheffield from the front seats of a first-generation DMU. But as it had had the heating going since the early hours, all we saw was the insides of our eyelids until we were turfed out.

I may well cause massive ruptions with this, but the first class seat on GWR 800's easily sends me off to sleep.

Last September I was very tired on a totally empty bench seat pacer from Preston to Manchester Victoria, calling only at Blackburn. This was at about 21:30-22:00 so I just decided to use my bag for a pillow and the bench seats of the pacer as my bed and sleep for the journey into Manchester. Not a bad kip all things considered!

fishquinn said:

Last September I was very tired on a totally empty bench seat pacer from Preston to Manchester Victoria, calling only at Blackburn. This was at about 21:30-22:00 so I just decided to use my bag for a pillow and the bench seats of the pacer as my bed and sleep for the journey into Manchester. Not a bad kip all things considered!

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The only thing those bench seats are good for!

Honestly I'd be happy to ride older trains, as long as they're long and spacious! Unfortunately DfT will give you a Newish train but back you into at most 50% of the nessacery space. Or they'll just give you a two car pacer!

The seats on a 159 before the latest refurbishment to turn the comfy seats into memory foam seats were good to catch up on a bit of sleep on (especially when heading to London on the first train of the day when it was still dark outside).

Scotrail84 said:

The original 1st class seats on a ScotRail 170 were incredibly comfortable and great for a kip.

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Seconded. I used to sleep all the way from Perth to Queen Street in the single airline seat at the cab bulkhead on 2N48 every day.