• Our booking engine at tickets.railforums.co.uk (powered by TrainSplit) helps support the running of the forum with every ticket purchase! Find out more and ask any questions/give us feedback in this thread!

745 ride quality

Status
Not open for further replies.

irish_rail

Established Member
Joined
30 Oct 2013
Messages
3,813
Location
Plymouth
Had reason to go to Essex recently and thought I'd try out the new stadler trains.
Couldn't quite believe how lively the ride was, actually made me queasy (takes alot as I drive locos without much suspension). Absolutely horrific jerking from side to side. The like of which I haven't experienced.
Did I just get a bad unit or are all the stadlers this bad?
 
Sponsor Post - registered members do not see these adverts; click here to register, or click here to log in
R

RailUK Forums

lxfe_mxtterz

Member
Joined
3 Mar 2018
Messages
817
Location
Sarahdale (West of Emmerdale)
Can't speak for the whole fleet, but I did a London to Norwich and back on the 745s on Monday, and I too was very surprised with the ride quality.

I agree about the violent jerking from side to side at points during the journey (in both directions).

It was so bad that I had to sit down between ordering and collecting at the buffet. Back to my seat - sway, bang, crash - and I ended up with a nose full of cider. :s :rolleyes:

I expect maybe it didn't help that I sat directly above the wheels...

Was also an interesting experience going over the noisy swing bridge just before Norwich, as I'd never been round that way before.

Interior-wise, however, they are really nice trains - I just expected a smoother ride...
 

Wyrleybart

Established Member
Joined
29 Mar 2020
Messages
1,623
Location
South Staffordshire
Not been on one of these trains yet. As they are semi articulated, is the wild ride all through, or just in certain parts, maybe above the articulated bogies ?
 

317666

Established Member
Joined
4 Sep 2009
Messages
1,771
Location
East Anglia
I've not travelled much on the 745s, but it's never been an issue for me on the 755s. Between Cambridge and Ely the ride quality is night and day compared to the banging and crashing of the hopeless suspension on 387s.
 

306024

Established Member
Joined
23 Jan 2013
Messages
3,942
Location
East Anglia
Done lots of journeys on 745s now. The GEML will never be the smoothest of routes due to the heavy volume of traffic and the geology at the southern end. However 745s aren’t too bad, certainly not ‘wild’.
They are perhaps not as good as a Mk3 at coping with minor lumps and bumps, but nothing that causes me any great alarm, or illness.

The design means there are more seats over the bogies, never a great place to sit. Whether there is any difference over the articulated bogies is difficult to say.
 

colchesterken

Member
Joined
12 Oct 2010
Messages
764
Yes my reaction too. I thought why replace the good old mk3s with their air bags, with something rougher I also find the sloping floors a problem walking down a sudden slope make me feel like I am going to stumble forward, So no trips to the buffet.
But there seems to be many issues across the board with new trains 700 series and 800 not as good ride as those they replaced
Ohhhh and the seats problems
Please may we have the 309s back. was going to suggest fitting a panto to the 442s but we have been there before!!!!
 

AM9

Veteran Member
Joined
13 May 2014
Messages
14,192
Location
St Albans
Yes my reaction too. I thought why replace the good old mk3s with their air bags, with something rougher I also find the sloping floors a problem walking down a sudden slope make me feel like I am going to stumble forward, So no trips to the buffet.
But there seems to be many issues across the board with new trains 700 series and 800 not as good ride as those they replaced
Ohhhh and the seats problems
Please may we have the 309s back. was going to suggest fitting a panto to the 442s but we have been there before!!!!
I would take issue with the 700s ride quality. They are better than the 319s and much better than the Electrostars which lurched sideways alarmingly especially on the MML, where most of their fast running is at 100mph over some pretty difficult track. The MKIII LHCS (as opposed to the 319/321 EMUs) are OK on good track but tend to wallow with a soggy feel on indifferent lines.
Much as the 309s were the best EMUs running in the UK until the 442s arrived, I feel that were a ride at 80mph+ on almost any track possible now, it would shake those rose-tinted specs off our noses and into our laps. :)
 

lxfe_mxtterz

Member
Joined
3 Mar 2018
Messages
817
Location
Sarahdale (West of Emmerdale)
I also find the sloping floors a problem walking down a sudden slope make me feel like I am going to stumble forward
Yes, you do need to be careful on those ramps! The worst ones are the ones immediately adjacent to the "cupboard room" in the centre of the train, which are significantly steeper than the others. I full-on tripped going up one of those on Monday to get to the toilet. It doesn't help that the carpet deceives you into thinking there isn't even a ramp there.

Ohhhh and the seats problems
Personally, I find the seats on the 745s quite decent. I would appreciate them being a bit softer but otherwise they're not bad for the journeys the trains do - especially when you compare them to the likes of the 800s.

I'll be honest in saying that prior to having travelled on one, I assumed that most people were exaggerating about the seats on the 800s, but having recently had the misfortune of trying one out, the seats really are abysmal and I pity anyone who has to suffer one from London to Cornwall (or vice versa)...
 
Last edited:

Paul Jones 88

Member
Joined
15 Dec 2020
Messages
446
Location
Headcorn
Should have standardised on the Class 444 design for long distance trains, overhaed line and diesel versions could have been built.
 

DanNCL

Established Member
Joined
17 Jul 2017
Messages
4,196
Location
County Durham
I’m surprised, I’ve always found the ride quality of the 745s to be quite decent, certainly when compared to nearly everything else built for the UK rail network in the last 10 years anyway!
 

XAM2175

Established Member
Joined
8 Jun 2016
Messages
3,469
Location
Glasgow
Based on my experience with FLIRTs in Switzerland and Germany I get the impression that British rails are a bit less smooth than Stadler is used to ;)
 

Bletchleyite

Veteran Member
Joined
20 Oct 2014
Messages
97,541
Location
"Marston Vale mafia"
Should have standardised on the Class 444 design for long distance trains, overhaed line and diesel versions could have been built.

To be fair the 185 basically is, give or take the door positions. But the Desiro Classic is no longer available anyway, so this wouldn't have been an option for Greater Anglia.
 

chubs

Member
Joined
30 Oct 2012
Messages
656
The GEML is pretty awful in places, those saying the mk3's handled it better are looking back with rose tinted specs - those heaps or life expired junk used to squeal and screech all over the place as well as rock from side to side.

The 745's on local routes seem to glide.
 

irish_rail

Established Member
Joined
30 Oct 2013
Messages
3,813
Location
Plymouth
The GEML is pretty awful in places, those saying the mk3's handled it better are looking back with rose tinted specs - those heaps or life expired junk used to squeal and screech all over the place as well as rock from side to side.

The 745's on local routes seem to glide.
Too be fair to Mk3s they use to bounce up and down a fair bit but never the side to side jerking i experienced on the 745, which personally I found alot more disturbing than the mk3 bounce which has never bothered me.
I found the train in general poor , especially the mountainous up and down terrain. I wouldn't want to be much over 6ft and try walking down one of these with all the low hanging display screens and what not. I could also hear a baby screaming 3 carriages away, very unconvinced that walk through carriages are a good idea on "intercity" routes, thats if the GEML can be described as such?
Where I did like the 745 was the seating was better than the stuff we endure on the western.
 

danielnez1

Member
Joined
14 May 2012
Messages
163
Location
Seghill
To be fair the 185 basically is, give or take the door positions. But the Desiro Classic is no longer available anyway, so this wouldn't have been an option for Greater Anglia.

I remember the MD at a TPE stakeholder event a good few years ago saying that when the 185s entered service, they received a lot of complaints about the "firm" suspension. His explanation was that Siemens designed the Desiro body profile to upper limits of the loading gauge in order to maximize passenger space, and the suspension needed to be more firmer/restrictive to prevent the coaches from going out of gauge. I wonder if if it is the same for the 74e etc.?
 

306024

Established Member
Joined
23 Jan 2013
Messages
3,942
Location
East Anglia
Too be fair to Mk3s they use to bounce up and down a fair bit but never the side to side jerking i experienced on the 745, which personally I found alot more disturbing than the mk3 bounce which has never bothered me.
I found the train in general poor , especially the mountainous up and down terrain. I wouldn't want to be much over 6ft and try walking down one of these with all the low hanging display screens and what not. I could also hear a baby screaming 3 carriages away, very unconvinced that walk through carriages are a good idea on "intercity" routes, thats if the GEML can be described as such?
Where I did like the 745 was the seating was better than the stuff we endure on the western.
I’d tend to agree about the mountainous terrain, takes a lot of getting used to, but is the price you pay for level boarding. Anecdotal evidence is it has reduced train - platform interface incidents (to use modernspeak), but worsened trips on the train itself. At least you weren’t pushing a catering trolley through as well ;)

Internal doors are kept open just now as a Covid initiative, so hopefully baby screaming can be mitigated in future.

As for Mk3s of course they were life expired, and the standard class ones were decidedly uncomfortable with the number of seats crammed in. I guess the ride quality comparison is fairly subjective, depending partly on where you sit in either train.
 

gallafent

Member
Joined
23 Dec 2010
Messages
517
The MKIII LHCS (as opposed to the 319/321 EMUs) are OK on good track but tend to wallow with a soggy feel on indifferent lines.
Agreed … and I found that a lot more agreeable, certainly when seated (far less jerking / jittering / juddering, etc.), and as for walking along the train, one's sea legs got used to it pretty quickly.
 

themiller

Member
Joined
4 Dec 2011
Messages
1,056
Location
Cumbria, UK
Stadler trains perform perfectly well in Switzerland so perhaps the answer is to get a SBB track crew over here to show the UK people how it’s done.
 

AM9

Veteran Member
Joined
13 May 2014
Messages
14,192
Location
St Albans
Stadler trains perform perfectly well in Switzerland so perhaps the answer is to get a SBB track crew over here to show the UK people how it’s done.
We'd probably need a Swiss size buget for the project as well.
 

Railperf

Established Member
Joined
30 Oct 2017
Messages
2,923
The ride in the middle of the carriages are fine. But sitting over the bogies - particularly the articulated ones - there is a lot more side to side movement and a fair bit of rattling going on. On the worst sections of track you do feel some low frequency vibration transmitted into the floorpan. This i noted on both 745/0 and 745/1. Today quite a few 745/1s on Norwich trains and 1P21 has failed south of Hatfield Peverel. Bi-di working in operation around it.
 

Bald Rick

Veteran Member
Joined
28 Sep 2010
Messages
29,070
Stadler trains perform perfectly well in Switzerland so perhaps the answer is to get a SBB track crew over here to show the UK people how it’s done.

How it’s done is to build railways on rock rather than London clay and Fen.
 

lordbusiness

Member
Joined
17 Dec 2014
Messages
187
The 755s on the rural routes seem to ride well enough but I'll agree that some parts of the GE do seem bumpier on a 745 compared to Mk3 discounting the horrible squeaks the Mk3s were prone to.
What really opened my eyes as to how bad parts of the GE are is when I took a WMids 350 to Milton Keynes- virtually the same train as a 360 but the ride was out of this world on both fast and slow lines compared to a 360 on the GE.
 

TheEdge

Established Member
Joined
29 Nov 2012
Messages
4,489
Location
Norwich
Its dependent on track quality in my experience. On nice flat smooth parts of the GEML they are lovely but they do really like to bounce and roll with the track.
 

Horizon22

Established Member
Associate Staff
Jobs & Careers
Joined
8 Sep 2019
Messages
7,448
Location
London
The GEML takes an absoutely pounding and is one of the worst ride qualities in my experience from any London terminal. I've noticed no discernable difference between Mk3 and 745s as to how much I end up swaying (its quite a lot). Even the 345s which are going at a reduced speed and calling all stops have some issues.
 

lordbusiness

Member
Joined
17 Dec 2014
Messages
187
After what happened with the 80x fleets, one can only hope the units are up to the pounding and Stadler have made them up to it.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Top