On Thu, 30 Apr 2015 11:49:51 +0100, "Tim Roll-Pickering"
wrote:

Paul Corfield wrote:

TfL take over two chunks of NR with new operators
in a month's time and people may well be calling TfL "****" fairly
soon if those operations fall flat on their face in the early days.
Even though TfL have "soft pedalled" about the scale of change that is
possible in the early days that won't stop the public expectations
running ahead of reality and then being dashed when trains still conk
out, wires fall down and points and signals fail as they are wont to
do on both West Anglia and the Shenfield line.

On top of all that here on the Shenfield line passengers primarily want
timetable common sense in the peaks (Forest Gate has the problem that in the
busiest part of the morning peak there's a 36 minute period with only two
London trains, both heavily packed and if one goes down the other is
physically impossible to board) and a better interior layout on the rolling
stock that's more appropriate for a very busy metro service with stations as
little as two minutes apart. (The vestibles are often rampacked whilst some
seats are empty because many prioritise the chance to get off at their
station over a seat.)

I suspect that the rush to partially repaint the rolling stock in advance
will backfire as passengers come to expect more and dismiss this as
corporate vanity. The old stock colours would be more accepted as it would
show legacy.

Are they going to repainted? I seem to recall that LO simply cleaned
and applied stickers over the Silverlink livery on the old trains it
first took over. For example:
http://en.academic.ru/pictures/enwik...a-20080513.JPG
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi..._on_508303.jpg
http://ukrailwaypics.smugmug.com/UKR...%2816%29-S.jpg

The new trains won't be 378s, but will probably have a similar
internal layout, with fewer, longitudinal seats, plenty of standing
room, and easy movement between cars.