Managed a ride on 397 007 today, 1M97 1212 Edinburgh-Manchester Airport, between Carlisle and Preston.
Nice train, terrible ride.
The train is an enhanced version of CAF's 331, with just the same poor and noisy ride.
The interior is really nice, much like a refurbished 185 with a more generous layout, and very similar to a Nova 3.
Even the "poor" seats (airline style with no window alignment) have some sort of view.
But the ride...
The WCML track is as good as it comes, and there were periods of decent running and periods of unacceptably shaky riding - jiggly I'd call it.
Particularly noisy over pointwork, of which there is a lot more around Manchester than there is on the northern WCML.
It's impossible to read in those conditions and an hour or so was more than enough for me, and I'm quite a stoic while travelling generally.
For what it's worth, the worst sections were the straight-ish sections north of Penrith, and again south of Oxenholme.
It seemed rather better when negotiating pronounced curves of which there are many through the fells.
The ride was, frankly, nothing like as good as on the rock-solid 390 I also used today over the same track, or on a 350 or 185 for that matter.
The PIS is the same as in Nova 3.
Initially it was stuck on "This is Manchester Oxford Road, next stop Manchester Piccadilly", but at Lancaster it burst into life with full info, except it missed out the set-down stop at Bolton.
It can certainly accelerate fast out of stations, but it didn't make any dent in the 10 minutes or so lateness from Carlisle, against the 350 schedule.
By Oxenholme we were holding up the following Pendolino.
All 5 coaches were well filled, and nice to have end doors. The toilets looked smart.
Oddly, the carpet throughout was a complete mess of dirt and debris and what looked like melting ice pieces.
I can only think this was walked aboard by passengers during the day from icy platforms, but no other train I was on was as bad.
As a result it did not have the feeling of a brand new train.
Faced with a choice of train, I would prefer a 390 every time, and it would be a toss-up with a Voyager - the 397 has a better layout, but a worse ride.
I really hope First Trenitalia don't choose the 397 for their Voyager replacement.
It doesn't feel like a proper intercity train which eats up the miles while you doze off.
![TP[ineapple]E](/data/avatars/m/74/74836.jpg?1621537659){kind=avatar}
