It's not just length with the like of 170s, though, it's comfort. Those things are ridiculously cramped - anything more than a half hour run (unless you're at a dead time and can stretch out at table) and it's ridiculously uncomfortable. They're far from the only train where this is case, too. Being crammed in like sardines in airline-style seats, with backs you can't see over, low down, and misaligned with windows, is an unpleasant experience. And yet, it seems to be increasingly the norm.
That, and the daft cost of flexible tickets. Sorry, but I can't plan every aspect of my days, particularly for work. I expect to pay a little more for flexibility, but most journeys I do (to Newcastle, Leeds, etc) have ludicrous prices. Sorry, but no, that's not acceptable - you're basically saying you have to book way in advance unless you're on an expense account. It makes the TOCs look like a bunch of cheap spivs.
Then, reliability. Yes, I do expect trains to be on time to within a minute or so, except in case of something genuinely out of the railway's control. If I look at a 10- or 15-minute connection, I start thinking 'hmm, can I make it', which means I leave longer. Oh great, now I have 45 minutes in Peterborough station bar, watching grown men cry into their pints. The joy, the joy.
Actually, that's not finally. The last part is the the whole ethos that comes with privately-run companies of the type that are running a huge chunk of our railways: that it's all about the money. There's no sense that it's a service to the country any more. So, unless you're travelling to/from London, on a premium route, on an expensive ticket... Well, you don't really count, do you? You can go and change several times to get where you're going on your cheaper tickets, thankyou. We need to speed things up to the capital, to draw in those expense-claiming air passengers who won't even blink at the silly walk-up fares.
And you know, despite all of that, I still go out of my way to travel on them. Must be something in it, eh? It's probably more that I think of cars as a blight than anything else...
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I don't understand why doors at the end are any better/worse than doors in the middle? Surely two doors are two doors?
Comfort, really. Doors at the end mean you have a vestibule separate from the carriage - you get less noise, fewer draughts when the train stops, and somewhere to put luggage (a novel concept on many of the newer trains!) and have toilets where they might not stink up the whole carriage.