Which Electrostar do you love the most?

[fgwrich]

The staff refer to them as the plastics.

The build quality is terrible. There has been fault after fault after fault and not all public. Some minor, some major. But we may end up with the newer verison tho I believe this is being dreaded.

This and other reasons, are why i can not stand the entire Electrostar and
Turdostar Fleets...

There build quility has always felt cheap and of a poor standards, as has the interior designs...Especially when compared to the track crusifying Desiros - which by the way, have a far lighter and brighter interior, that dosent feel claustrophobic and unclean...

357 : The Interior is pretty poor, with a rather irritating mixture of 3&2 seating with those horrid plastic chapman seating.

375: Interior wise wasnt too bad when they were new, but 10 years - or in most cases, less than 10 years, has worn there interior down horribly with most running around with stained carpets, interior panneling, seating etc etc...

And that Bin in the vestuble has always come across as quite a after thaught... a sort of we to include it in the designs, to were else can we stick it...

376: Not as bad as the rest of the family, but only becasue they are used on shorter stopping routes...But still have that horrible Bombardier carpet feel pannels under the window frames which are pretty prone to staining - note, these seem to be found across all the electrostar fleets minus the 378s

377: Started out exactly the same as the 375s, but now come in various forms with the fleet largley split between 3+2 & 2+2 seated units, even with the original type seating, thanks to the wonderful astro turf seating they are not a plesure to ride upon as they used to be. Again, despite southers replacement flooring, the carpets are pretty poor as can some of the interior panels, again prone to staining...

378: OH DEAR...

Not going to say much about these becasue they may be brand new, but new dosent nessasarily mean its good...which buy the way there not... The seating layout is pretty questionable as is the tube style seats provided, meaning if you want to lean back whilst sitting down, your headbutting a window, aswell as facing the people opposite...

Definatly not the best thought out of trains over the last decade...

379: As Above...Oh Dear...

Thinking logically, there could be absolutly no need for ordering these, if sense prevailed! Ideal replacement for the Stansted Express would be the Ex Gatwick Junipers - Already 8 Car, Only change required to the timetable would be to change it to every 20 minutes - but thats not much of a difference and would allow 2 sets to be out of service for maintenance...

Oh dear, better not mention anymore logical ideas...remember the old saying of 'railway logic'?

Anyhow, these are of course my opions, which most people of course have there own...

And despite typing out all of the above, to a degree i do agree with TDKs post...though im more commenting on how they have faired aswell as aspects of their design...

Bringing my post to close, whilst i prefer the desiro family over the electrostars and junipers, i personnaly belive the best of all EMUs for build quility, ride quility and design has to go to CAF for the 332/333 Fleets...

 

[MCR247]

fgwrich: I dont think your reasons for not liking the trains you mentioned are valid. The seats, the carpet, the layout etc is down to the TOC, not the builders. The ex Central train seating was crap, but I couldnt say that 158s were crap because of those reasons, because the EMT refurb is great. 'lighter and brighter interior, that dosent feel claustrophobic and unclean...' is down to the TOCs specs

 

[DjU]

379: As Above...Oh Dear...

Thinking logically, there could be absolutly no need for ordering these, if sense prevailed! Ideal replacement for the Stansted Express would be the Ex Gatwick Junipers - Already 8 Car, Only change required to the timetable would be to change it to every 20 minutes - but thats not much of a difference and would allow 2 sets to be out of service for maintenance...

Oh dear, better not mention anymore logical ideas...remember the old saying of 'railway logic'?

Anyhow, these are of course my opions, which most people of course have there own...

Problem with that is that ideas are only logical when they make sense, yours don't.

Putting aside the fact that the Class 460 are 3rd rail units which unlike there 458 cousins aren't (as far as I'm aware) designed to easily be transformed in to 25kv units - they don't have pantograph wells for a start, unlike all other modern 3rd rail units - so even if they were plumbed up inside for it they would still have to undergo quite significant modification.

As I said putting that aside

The current Stansted Express service is run from a pool of 21 x 4 car Class 317 = 84 carriages
This service runs every 15 minutes.

You propose

8 x 8 car Class 460 = 64 carriages
Every 20 minutes


The West Anglia is overcrowded (like many routes) but is also heavily constrained capacity wise due to the core being two tracks but taking a huge mixture of Expresses and Stoppers, they need as much capacity as possible, one of the plans is to extended Stansted trains to 12 carriages, which is why the new order of Class 379 is 30 x 4 car.

This order will enable Stansted Express trains to go to 12 car and release the existing units to strength other WA services.

But your idea is to cut the service down and cripple the opportunity for expansion!

Very Logical! Bravo!

I'm sure someone like O L Leigh, who works on the WA route, can hopefully confirm most of what I said!

 

[87015]

.... and a 20 minute frequency wouldn't work with all the other services on the West side either.

The 379s will also work various Cambridge turns, for the first year or so at least, releasing 317s to work some GE trains to provide yet more seats in the peak from Witham, Chelmsford etc.

 

[thefab444]

the new order of Class 379 is 30 x 4 car.

How about... a transfer of 30 x 458 to the GEML, and an order of 30 x 450 for SWT?

 

[fgwrich]

Problem with that is that ideas are only logical when they make sense, yours don't.

Putting aside the fact that the Class 460 are 3rd rail units which unlike there 458 cousins aren't (as far as I'm aware) designed to easily be transformed in to 25kv units - they don't have pantograph wells for a start, unlike all other modern 3rd rail units - so even if they were plumbed up inside for it they would still have to undergo quite significant modification.

As I said putting that aside

The current Stansted Express service is run from a pool of 21 x 4 car Class 317 = 84 carriages
This service runs every 15 minutes.

You propose

8 x 8 car Class 460 = 64 carriages
Every 20 minutes


The West Anglia is overcrowded (like many routes) but is also heavily constrained capacity wise due to the core being two tracks but taking a huge mixture of Expresses and Stoppers, they need as much capacity as possible, one of the plans is to extended Stansted trains to 12 carriages, which is why the new order of Class 379 is 30 x 4 car.

This order will enable Stansted Express trains to go to 12 car and release the existing units to strength other WA services.

But your idea is to cut the service down and cripple the opportunity for expansion!

Very Logical! Bravo!

I'm sure someone like O L Leigh, who works on the WA route, can hopefully confirm most of what I said!

Ok so said plan isnt as totally thought out as i originally ment to put it...

And i thaught the 460s were built bascially as a express versian of the 334s, but with the power collection via the third rail... But surely fitting a pantograph well isnt that difficult?

But by the way, in my original post, what i ment was to change the 15 minute frequency to every 20 minutes, with 6x8 car units in service at a any time...

And one reason for suggesting the 460s was becasue the exsisting service is usually 8 car, so :

6x8 car units = 48 coaches, whilst of course the present service is run with 2x4 car 317s, so every 15 minutes there is 48 coaches...

I Didnt also know that an extention to cambridge was on the cards aswell!, i was just suggesting a new express use for the airport express designd 460s...

So as i said, i didnt think as much of it through as i should have then...Sorry?!

Going back to another thing i said about the interiors of the Electrostars, whilst it is down to the TOCs of course, but the some of the desiro fleet is as old, if not older than some of the electrostars, yet you dont seem to notice any staind interior panels in any of them...OK so its parlty down to TOC spec, but surley bombardier for choosing what seems to be various products of inferior quility over the years, but still continue to produce them...

Anyhow. End of - as i said, these are just my opinions, most of you have got your own, so there...

 

[jon0844]

Interiors will be etched and stained from graffiti removal - and some colours probably help hide this more than others. It would appear you can 'fill' the etched panels, but I guess there are only so many colours you can get the paint in - so it would make sense to design this accordingly from day one.

Using cheap and flimsy fabrics (as I saw on the former GE 360s) will have a new train looking old long before its time. Use hard wearing seats and carpets, or decent vinyl flooring, decent lighting and keep things clean and you can end up having very old trains looking like new.

Some TOCs (or former TOCs) don't seem to have understood this fact.

 

[Daimler]

fgwrich: I dont think your reasons for not liking the trains you mentioned are valid. The seats, the carpet, the layout etc is down to the TOC, not the builders. The ex Central train seating was crap, but I couldnt say that 158s were crap because of those reasons, because the EMT refurb is great. 'lighter and brighter interior, that dosent feel claustrophobic and unclean...' is down to the TOCs specs

I'm not sure I'm in agreement with you. Is that down to TOC's specs entirely? I mean, a Desiro with 2+3 seating is lighter and brighter than an Electrostar, and the same goes for 2+2 - it has more to do with the design of the windows, and the actual way the interior of the train is designed, as opposed to specified. Claustrophobic-ness (ahem ) I see in the same light. The only thing I might concede is that cleanliness is something that isn't down to the train itself - then again 'feeling unclean' isn't the same as 'being unclean', so you could even put this general feeling of unhealthiness down to the Electro/Turdostar design.

 

[37401]

379`s because they are a great ride...no seriously how can you vote on something thats not in existance yet?

 

[Drsatan]

Having only travelled on the 377s, I'm not qualified to talk about the rest of the Electrostar family.

What I will say though is that the 377s are quite pleasant units to travel on. The seats on these units are fairly comfy and the interior has quite a pleasant ambiance; depending on how I feel the interior of the 444/450s seems a bit "clinical", rather like a doctor's surgery as someone else once said on these forums! Moreover, the lady's voice providing the PIS announcements is quite soothing, though some people have complained that there are way too many PIS announcements, that's the TOCs fault not the builders.

However, cleanliness is an issue since the last 377 I travelled on (Worthing to Fratton on a Sunday afternoon in July) was a bit messy inside and the windows were dirty. If it was cleaner inside then it may not have felt so "dingy"

 

[Vulcan]

377 looks best.

376 looks odd without the corridor connection, I wonder why they didn't give it a turbostar style front? The triple windscreens look odd, too many wipers.

 

[aspierail]

From my experience the class 357 is the best one as it has comfortable seats and it looks like a turbostar where as class 375/9 376 and 377 all have dodgy seating but i haven't travelled on a class 378 though.

 

[Minstral25]

I like the 377's a lot and I do travel on them a lot as well. However there is a big difference between travelling on most 377/1's and 377/3's to 377/4's - the 3+2 seating on the /4s is rubbish and very uncomfortable - fortunately the driver cars are 2+2 so I make a beeline for them.

I travel on 378's quite regular and although the colours are nicer than Southern Green - the stupid seat layout means I still haven't sat down on one yet. Feel really sorry for anyone who spend more than 15 minutes in one as they are generally standing only - ok for central london tubes when in central london but not really for a longer distance line.

I have had odd journeys on 375';s and 376's and can't recall be impressed or disappointed, so no impression really. I did travel on 357's when they first came out and I recall were OK.

 

[Ivo]

I voted 357, though my view is biased by HAVING HAD TO USE THEM FOR SEVEN YEARS!!!!! BAH!!!!! ...Never known one to break down though, and now I'm out of their service area it's unlikely I ever will. They could introduce First-Class though. I think the colour scheme used on 357010 is pretty neat (Green, advertising c2c's green credentials).

 

[talltim]

Various people have mentioned that the interior is down to 'TOC spec' but so is the nose and the livery. If you discount 'TOC spec' items then aren't they all pretty much the same?

 

[43167]

Only really been on 377's over long distance. No real reason to dislike them. Sampled a 378 the other week after the rugby final at wembley. Plain to see they were designed to move masses of people.

 

[MCR247]

Various people have mentioned that the interior is down to 'TOC spec' but so is the nose and the livery. If you discount 'TOC spec' items then aren't they all pretty much the same?

Please don't dig up old threads

But BTW no, the nose isn't down to the TOC (apart from Voyagers). That is why I dislike these polls, it should be about the ride, flaws, etc not I don't like the seating colour

 

[Snapper]

The 378 seat layout makes perfect sense on the routes they operate on. The NLL is incredibly busy and most people travel short distances on it. There's an amazing amount of prams/bikes and luggage carried on that line so the extra space is extremely useful. The 313 seat layout was hopeless in this respect.

In general, I have no problem at all with the Electrostars. They're proving to be very reliable trains that are a great improvement on what they replaced.

 

[jopsuk]

Aye. I'd reckon there'd be worse things to do than order a load more 377 and 376 (or 378?) for Southern to replace/cascade elsewhere their 313, 455, 456 and 442 fleets. Oh, and the 171 fleet as well, of course. Money, as ever, sees that this won't happen.

(I'm sure it would be possible to have 2 car 376s to replace the 456)

 

[D6975]

I recently did a Southern Trains Daysaver Rover as the first day of my holiday to the North East (I know... but it was a different and entertaining way of getting to London by 8pm.) I spent a fair few hours riding 377s with 2+2 seating, tables and a good view out of the window. Most pleasant to travel in I thought, smooth and comfortable. I also went up to Uckfield and back - 171s are pretty nice to travel on too.
On the way home from the NE I did a one day Travelcard and sampled 376 and 378s - both left much to be desired. The 378s are OK for a couple of stops, but I wouldn't want to do one all round the NLL. Once you're inside it's easy to forget you're on a 'proper' train, not the underground.

 

[Aictos]

I've used 377/5s a few times so really can only comment on them, now while they do come across as a big improvement on the 319s I'm not such a fan of the Southern specified interior IF they went for the FCC 365's interior then it would have been better.

Still when the 319s go in to be refurbished, hopefully they will be similar to the 317/7s spec which changed a tired design into a nearly new train.

If it was down to me, I would have liked nothing but to cancel the NXEMU order and have a order of 120 377/5s for the FCC routes split between the GN and TL so more 12 cars will be the norm

 

[talltim]

Please don't dig up old threads

But BTW no, the nose isn't down to the TOC (apart from Voyagers). That is why I dislike these polls, it should be about the ride, flaws, etc not I don't like the seating colour

Surely the choice of corridor connection front or not is down to the TOC

 

[MCR247]

Surely the choice of corridor connection front or not is down to the TOC

Sometimes I suppose, but that isn't the TOCs choice for example Go-Via Southeastern didn't get a choice and won't have one to remove the corridors on 375s if they wanted, whereas they can choose the seating layout and colours

 

[asylumxl]

I like all Electrostars, except the 376s.

They're like the 375 after a budget cut. Tesco Value product of the Electrostars.

 

[Jordy]

I think this thread has really run its course, no need to dig it up after such a long time.