There are disabled and disabled! The great majority of disabled people will get minimal benefit from new stock, especially when almost every Northern service is so full at peak times that even the most able have difficulty getting aboard. Getting to the toilet? Forget it, wherever it may be.
Far more important to most users I see, mostly not even registered as disabled, is the wide and/or high gap between platform and carriage door at almost all stations. As you get older you probably notice it more. Every carriage door should have an automatically extending step down to each platform at which it will call. That'll keep the body shops busy for a few years and add lots more expense to the bottom line.
If it's all about mobility I note that my station car park has almost 130 space and 7 for blue badge users who may have one or more of very many conditions. Rarely more than 2 are used when over 100 can't even get in the car park. The disabled have given their thumbs down to rail. It's the gaps and over crowding that deters many disabled travellers, not Pacers per se.
It's a sad state we're in when journalism isn't about balanced facts but ratings. No wonder it can sometimes be called fake news. Maybe not totally fake, but very much manipulated and causing us to concentrate too much attention to peripheral issues.
Disabled people of any type want to be able to get easily to, onto, around and out again from each and every train they want to catch. That means more seats = more coaches. It also means coach, platform, access and car park alterations. Pacers are a total red herring in the greater needs of most disabled people, but to comply to the letter of the legislation means many semi-disabled people may end up suffering. It also costs a lot of money..
Metrolink, when it was built, went for a no gap solution (between train and platform). They extended the platform out a little, and they fixed the track distance from the platform with a bit of sleeper, one end butted against the platform wall, the other end attached to the track with a normal base plate and Pandrol clips, stopping the track getting closer to the platform. maybe an idea that could be developed elsewhere??
Its not just disabled - its also people with prams/pushchairs...