On Thu, 16 Mar 2006, A Woodcraft wrote:

Tom Anderson writes:

More importantly, they're presumably cleared for higher levels of jerk
and deceleration than trains - after all, the limits on train
maneuvering are regulatory ones related to passenger comfort and
safety, rather than engineering ones, right? If they have
forward-facing all-seater accomodation, such a difference would make
sense.

If a vehicle is going to deccelerate sharply, I'd rather be in a backwards
facing seat than a forwards one!

A very good point! I was thinking about longitudinal vs transverse seats,
really - i find it easier to stay sat where i am if i'm facing parallel to
the direction of travel (in either direction) than perpendicular to it -
and expressed myself poorly.

In fact, don't the seats in the end carriages on a Pendolino face
backwards (when leading) for this reason?

Why only the end carriages? Is the deceleration harsher there? I would
have thought that a train was rigid enough that the deceleration was more
or less equal throughout, but given that this is a Pendo we're talking
about, nothing would surprise me ...

tom

--
Why do we do it? - Exactly!