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Recent train seats offer lower standards of comfort

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matacaster

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Whilst seating comfort is a matter of personal preference, it would appear many find recent train seats to be uncomfortable, lack lumbar support and are too narrow, with seats like wooden boards.

This is a general trend, and certain classes / seats are worse than others. This will tend to discourage people from travelling by train.

I consider this to be a ridiculous situation which wouldn't be tolerated in even a basic car.

Suggestions of H&S being the culprit are simply unbelievable. What I am not sure about is who is the guilty party, TOC, DfT, manufacturer or leasing company?
 
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100andthirty

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The former Transport Secretary complained that there was no objective standard to use to judge comfort. This encouraged the Rail Safety and Standards Board to commission work to develop a standard. This work was reported on here last year:

https://www.railengineer.co.uk/2019/07/08/are-you-sitting-comfortably/

Interlibrary to judge whether its had any impact but both the EMR and the Avanti West Coast orders post date this work.......so there is hope!
 

Woolly

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Whilst seating comfort is a matter of personal preference, it would appear many find recent train seats to be uncomfortable, lack lumbar support, are too narrow with seats like wooden boards. This is a general trend, but certain classes / seats are worse than others This will tend to discourage people from giving up their car or plane.

I consider this to be a ridiculous situation which wouldn't be tolerated in even a basic car.

Totally agree! The recent history if this is the dreadful Hitachi 800 class. Typical mindless spin from those pushing this is that seating comfort is 'subjective'.

Well it's also subjective that I'll now travel by car, thanks.
 

DGH 1

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:lol:. Mind you, some modern seating isn't much better than a wooden seat, maybe that's the intention, bit by bit without people knowing it, all us commoners are going to be travelling 3rd class before we know it. Like years gone by.
 

Bletchleyite

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To me the Fainsa Sophia is an awful seat but that is purely because of one specific design flaw in the base, which is that the cushion under your backside is deeper than under your thighs with a sharp edge between the two (the oft mentioned metal bar that if you look at the base shape actually isn't a metal bar). If that wasn't there I think I would quite like it. I do quite like the "contoured ironing board" which is similarly hard but lacks this flaw.
 

noodlepoodle

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Rail fire safety standards are now much more stringent than road vehicles and restrict the material choice (and push the cost up), so you could blame EN 45545-2 as the main culprit.
 

Doomotron

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To me the Fainsa Sophia is an awful seat but that is purely because of one specific design flaw in the base, which is that the cushion under your backside is deeper than under your thighs with a sharp edge between the two (the oft mentioned metal bar that if you look at the base shape actually isn't a metal bar). If that wasn't there I think I would quite like it. I do quite like the "contoured ironing board" which is similarly hard but lacks this flaw.
Yeah, the contoured one is nice. Hopefully they put them into the AT300s.
 

100andthirty

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Rail fire safety standards are now much more stringent than road vehicles and restrict the material choice (and push the cost up), so you could blame EN 45545-2 as the main culprit.

but none of this precludes comfortable seats. LU S stock has nice comfy seats and, because of tunnel working, has to conform to the highest requirements in EN 45545-2.
 

100andthirty

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As I understand, it precludes cheap comfy seats!

Everything on trains has to be produced to conform to agreed standards. Seats are no exception. If you were spending £1m on a new rail vehicle would you begrudge spending an extra £10000 on better seats. Practically, the issue has been caused by specification demanding a particular number of seats which puts pressure on the thickness of cushions and no one taking responsibility for the comfort. Worth reading the article linked further up the thread.

There's a parallel. When the first generation of new vehicles was purchased after privatisation, no one paid attention to weight. The weight of vehicles rose. As a result, later specifications set weight targets; these targets were achieved because they had become important. If seat comfort is seen as important, then comfy seats will be delivered. Everything else is an excuse.
 

ChiefPlanner

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I did SAC - Farringdon - Liverpool St - Cambridge - Peterborough - Kings Cross - SAC yesterday Tuesday day out.

700 / S Stock (but stood) - 1st generation class 317 on the slow train - 170 - 801 - 700.

Without doubt - despite a collapsed seat base which I was able to re-locate , the 317 (in 1st admittedly) , had the most comfortable seat.....and that on a 40+ year old , ex BR design.
 

PeterC

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For me it is the width of some new seats rather than the lack of padding that makes for an uncomfortable journey.
 

100andthirty

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The S-stock seats are interesting, they appear to be air-sprung in some way. Are they deep-sprung with an air damper to prevent people bouncing up and down as they used to on old LU seats?
They are not intentionally air sprung but air trapped in the seat may not easily escape when one sits on the seat. Andy there has never been an air damper on the seat on any train. There are hydraulic dampers on the train suspension and where air springs are used in the suspension, air dampers.
 

talldave

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What's a seat? (Asks a Thameslink passenger suffering from sardinitis).
 

samuelmorris

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Totally agree! The recent history if this is the dreadful Hitachi 800 class. Typical mindless spin from those pushing this is that seating comfort is 'subjective'.

Well it's also subjective that I'll now travel by car, thanks.
It is subjective, but that doesn't mean that there aren't designs that are objectively bad, which we are fast approaching. I do prefer to be upright with a moderately firm supportive seat rather than be slouched down but there's no doubt that current rolling stock seating is excessively hard, even if that's not a problem for everyone. If hastily flopping into a seat from standing height causes considerable pain because the seat has no give in it, you've gone too far!

Seats are just the most widespread complaint, however, of a general trend where comfort on trains is not just secondary to safety (as it should be) but being more and more directly impacted by safety. People may mourn the loss of older rolling stock as it's retired now, but for me, the 'golden age' of UK rail travel was on the first group of units newly introduced post-privatisation, such as the early Electrostar & Desiro classes. For the first time we had modern air-conditioned trains with useful automated information systems, but that still had comfortable seats and sensible volume door sounders, and we didn't have to hear 'see it say it sorted' announcements every 10 minutes and there were no ground rails screaming away underneath us. A long gap between stations would be that many minutes of peace and quiet, assuming there were no screaming children nearby of course :)
 

Bikeman78

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Rail fire safety standards are now much more stringent than road vehicles and restrict the material choice (and push the cost up), so you could blame EN 45545-2 as the main culprit.
Which is strange given that road vehicles fires are rather more common. On diesel trains the most likely source of fire is the engines. All recent fires I can think of have been minor and not penetrated into the saloon. By the time any such fire makes it to the seats, hopefully all the passengers will be off the train. The last major train fires I can think of are the two 143s and the HST at Ladbroke Grove. Is there any suggestion that the seats made any of those fires worse?
 

BRM

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And not just in the UK. I took a Frecciarossa 1000 Turin to Florence last year and the seat were very uncomfortable. It looked well padded but was extremely firm and had no give in it. I was glad to get an older Frecciarossa 500 for the return. The old TGV seats for Turin to Paris were more comfy too.
 

bosleyrog

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I do not think seats have recently made any fire worse, and this maybe considered a testament to the standards? However the volume of materials created by seats is viewed as a risk when considering fire.
Stringent fire standards, weight, durability, lifetime cost and initial cost all have a bearing on seat design. New designs have to balance all these considerations.
 

AM9

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... For the first time we had modern air-conditioned trains with useful automated information systems, but that still had comfortable seats and sensible volume door sounders, and we didn't have to hear 'see it say it sorted' announcements every 10 minutes and there were no ground rails screaming away underneath us. A long gap between stations would be that many minutes of peace and quiet, assuming there were no screaming children nearby of course :)
Since then of course we've had problems and indeed fatalities, from gauge corner cracking, (e.g. Hatfield) and terrorist activities on trains, (a few on LU but Madrid demonstrated that mainline services were also vulnerable), so both rail grinding and reminders for the public to report suspicious issues have become the norm. Just like seat designs, the level of acceptance of current measures is a personal matter, and there is never going to be universal acceptance on a utiltiy provided for all of the public.
 

Woolly

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People may mourn the loss of older rolling stock as it's retired now, but for me, the 'golden age' of UK rail travel was on the first group of units newly introduced post-privatisation, such as the early Electrostar & Desiro classes. For the first time we had modern air-conditioned trains with useful automated information systems, but that still had comfortable seats and sensible volume door sounders, and we didn't have to hear 'see it say it sorted' announcements every 10 minutes and there were no ground rails screaming away underneath us. A long gap between stations would be that many minutes of peace and quiet, assuming there were no screaming children nearby of course :)

Totally agree!
 

Bletchleyite

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They are not intentionally air sprung but air trapped in the seat may not easily escape when one sits on the seat. Andy there has never been an air damper on the seat on any train. There are hydraulic dampers on the train suspension and where air springs are used in the suspension, air dampers.

So are they foam or are they sprung?
 

TheGarner

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I assume it's down to money as they could still get comfy seats and still comply with any fire safety standards. If planes can still get comfy seats where a fire would be a lot more dangerous compared to a train. Then I don't see why all these new trains can't either.

It seems it's more down to money.
 

AM9

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I assume it's down to money as they could still get comfy seats and still comply with any fire safety standards. If planes can still get comfy seats where a fire would be a lot more dangerous compared to a train. Then I don't see why all these new trains can't either.

It seems it's more down to money.
The cost of seats in a vehicle (of any kind) isn't limited to the initial purchase cost. There's also cleaning, maintenance, the cost of carrying their weight and the cost of disposal. Unless one has that total lifetime cost at their disposal, it isn't possible to make any worthwhile judgement on a specifier's motives.
 

hexagon789

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Whilst seating comfort is a matter of personal preference, it would appear many find recent train seats to be uncomfortable, lack lumbar support and are too narrow, with seats like wooden boards.

This is a general trend, and certain classes / seats are worse than others. This will tend to discourage people from travelling by train.

I consider this to be a ridiculous situation which wouldn't be tolerated in even a basic car.

Suggestions of H&S being the culprit are simply unbelievable. What I am not sure about is who is the guilty party, TOC, DfT, manufacturer or leasing company?

Possibly a touch of a conspiracy theory - but maybe it's deliberate to discourage passengers?! ;)
 
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