Agreed; since ETCS has effectively restricted the Cambrian to one type of unit I've been of the opinion that the only better choice of unit at the time to the 158s would have been 159s (basically a 3-car version of the same thing). 6-cars Machynlleth to Shrewsbury does sound a little overkill, but Aberystwyth certainly would benefit from 3-cars on the busier trips year-round and the Coast in the summer. The tricky bit is how to provide a 2-car unit for the coast in the winter but 3-cars in summer. Perhaps the better option would be 3+2+2 with Aberystwyth having the 3-car unit and 4-cars up the Coast in summer with the other 2 detached at Shrewsbury in Winter (but, given the need for a Wrexham portion as well, that would make it 9 or 10 coaches between Shrewsbury and Birmingham).
Sadly I've not had a chance to try Standard Plus (I've still only had one trip on a 197, Shrewsbury to Wem, and I'm pretty sure that was only a 2-car unit) and now probably never will. Standard class on a 197 does have a slightly better seat pitch (spacing) in the non-priority airline-style seats (800mm vs 820mm I think) but the class 175s were even more roomy with, I think, 840mm between each row.
I'm a similar height to you (give or take half an inch probably) and I agree that 150s and 153s are too tightly packed with seats. The 158s I can just about fit in since ATW fitted the less-comfy but thiner-backed (and still better than the Sophias on 80x) new seats in the refurb around 2011, but mostly I aim for table bays on anything but 175s to avoid getting my knees crushed against the seat in front.
I'm not sure the gangway design is particularly Reindeer-esque, but the livery is certainly red-nosed. They're all Rudolphs! With the big red doors as well they have somewhat of a London Underground look to them externally too.Slightly off-topic but given the gangway design of the 197s, wasn’t it time TfW named one of their Civities Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer for the coming Christmas season ?
Of course, when they were ordered (with first class rather than standard plus) they were expected to work Manchester-Swansea hourly (so around 9 units, still a little shy of full utilisation so it's always been a mystery where else was expected to see them). I would hope that TfW are still planning to provide an hourly 5-car fast service between Cardiff and Swansea, so perhaps the Standard Plus diagrams on that route will do Manchester-Swansea-Cardiff-Swansea-Manchester, but this will still be less than the originally expected 9 diagrams due to the mark 4s now running Cardiff-Manchester every two hours. Presumably, this means more of the normal 3-car units on other routes will be replaced by Standard Plus units, releasing a small handful of normal (non-SP) 3-car 197s. If they are still going to impose the 197s on the Cambrian, they could do worse than fit those few released 3-car non-SP units with ETCS.
