I think that the telling point about the "bandwagon of hate" is that the thread about the TPE Mk5s (
https://www.railforums.co.uk/threads/first-tpe-mark-5a-bodyshell-completed.143579/) is full of enthusiasm about new carriages - how nice they look etc. The equivalent Caledonian Sleeper thread seems fairly positive too.
The threads about 800/801s seem to be along the lines of "cheap modern stock, new seats are never as comfortable as old seats, Voyager-clones" etc.
The fact that the Mk5s will be loco-hauled trains that replace DMUs whilst the 800/801s will replace the sainted HSTs might have something to do with it? I've not seen many people moaning about how the seats on the Mk5s (that they haven't travelled on yet) will be "uncomfortable". but I have seen a number of people moan about how the seats on the 800/801s (that they hadn't travelled on yet) would be. Telling?
(same kind of thing affected the 220/221/222s - Voyagers replaced lovely old loco hauled trains, but Meridians mainly replaced Turbostars - so certain aspects of Voyagers get complained about a lot more than equivalent features of Meridians)
The procurement does seem flawed, though I don't really have the knowledge to do an analysis of it. The rash of (apparently cheap) new orders does paint the IEP in a less-favourable light though
I think that, in a decade or so, we'll see the expensive initial procurement as a necessary evil to ensure that the network had a new "uniform" LDHS train (and not lots of small "180-style" classes).
Like with the NB4L/ Borrismaster, when you put all of the development costs onto an initial batch, everything looks expensive, but when these are spread over the number finally built, the costs seem a bit more reasonable.
The question that I believe has never been truly answered is are these commuter trains or are they long distance intercity trains?
I don't think that the UK railway has space for that kind of distinction nowadays.
I know that things are different in Germany, I know that things were different in the UK in the 1980s, but I don't think there's capacity to treat our railway like that now (however much some enthusiasts like to pigeon-hole things).
For example, I have a friend who was commuting daily from Reading to London in the '90s, when that was relatively unusual amongst the people he knew. Nowadays, the commuter belt has spread so that Didcot/ Swindon see significant numbers of Paddington commuters.
I think we've got to accept that modern trains have to be built to cater to different markets - BR could have a rake designed for tourists heading from London to Cornwall - BR could accept having that rake out of use for periods - but we don't have those luxuries now.
Preferably running on a reopened country branch line serving a few small villages (the more sparsely populated the better) with the multi million reopening costs justified by it being used as a diversionary route once a decade.
Okay, I genuinely laughed out loud...
The big problem is that the bi-mode capabilities of the 800/802 units are being used as an excuse to cut major modernisation projects
It does if the major infrastructure provider (NR) has shown itself utterly incompetent in the project management, costings and delivery of the electrification work it has carried out recently. Once they've got that sorted out (don't ask me how they do that, the expertise is already sat within NR allegedly) then absolutely, revisit electrification, but it just can't carry on the way it is now, it's a huge waste of money and needs to be drawn back to a more manageable level until NR's internal issues are resolved.
I'm with mpthomson here - if Network Rail were capable of delivering the electrification that they promised, to the timescale that they promised, to the budget that they promised, then we wouldn't be in a position where any politician of any colour was using bi-mode as a "Plan B" for places like Cardiff - Swansea.
I'd love lines to get electrified - I've suggested it as a solution for a number of routes - but at the moment we don't have a railway capable of managing those kind of schemes to a budget and to a timescale. That's not the fault of Hitachi.
No Government would give Network Rail an open chequebook, given their problems - it's no wonder that some bits have been trimmed (e.g. Oxford, Bristol, Swansea) so that they can focus on delivering a "basic" GWML electrification. The fact that we have bi-mode trains allows us a "Plan B" in the circumstances, rather than cancelling the whole thing.
Seating is and always will be subjective.
True.
Yet it's also one of the most debated topics on the Forum, despite our different frames/ legs/ preferences etc.