Hi there, my first post, though have probably read varying threads over the years.
I live "on" the Hadfield/Glossop line and have been a user of the line for the 33 years I have lived here. I've seen 303s (brilliant and fast but unreliable - prob. age related), 304s (meh - but a stop-gap), 305s (ex-Network South-East and quite nice), and for the past 20-odd years, 323s.
I've quite enjoyed the 323s - there's a few minor design faults, but on the whole, they're great.
Until now. Northern have had them ruined. I don't know how many are in service, but I've been on 323234 and 323238. Here is my list of issues:
- Hard seats particularly the backrest. I've had three journeys now on the trains and had backache late into the evening - still got it now after this evening's journey (16:28 from MAN).
- Overly dark windows - can't see any location features en-route or at stations out of the carriage windows at night. When the tannoy is inaudible and the LCD display not showing next station name it leads to panic over where you are. I missed my station last Friday, on only the second trip on one of the refurbished trains. The tinted windows on the pre-refurbs are dark but you could just about see stuff out of them.
- Door beepers too loud. They're terrifying.
- LCD display pointless. Doesn't show what you need to know, when you need to know it.
- Train ride quality appears to have been interfered with. The trains that haven't been touched have a much smoother ride.Jiggles about like the refurb. 319s.
- The "twos" seats are not set opposite each other like the "threes" seats. This leads to very obtrusive in-your-face talking and seat departures from certain of the adjacent aisle seats.
I have to use these to get to work every day, and as they are, the refurbished units are unacceptable and I will be making a formal complaint about them.
If you've got this far, thank you for reading through.
Regards,
Tony.