Nick wrote:
"826" wrote in message
om...

I went to meetings about the 376 as part of the Connex passenger
forums, so
no doubt they would claim I was part of the "consultation". It was a
total
and utter sham - Olivier Brousse had already decided that they were
going to
be building "tube" trains for the routes closer to London, and there
was
certainly no debate to be had on that. What it came down to really
was: Did
we want a moderate OR very severe cut in the seating numbers compared
to
what we're used to?!

We passed comments on some of the original designs (which I never
found
particularly clear - they never once produced a proper diagram of the
train
layout from above) and were horrified to find some original designs
included
sections of longitudinal bench seating at the edges of the train!
(Now I
think about it, they really did have an agenda to make these trains
as
uncomfortable as possible maybe)

We certainly never discussed or were made aware of there intentions
to
remove all padding from the seats, and for them to be so
extraordinaly high
and oddly shaped. The assumption was that they would be along the
lines of
Networker seats but in a 2x2 formation with slightly wider spacing
(which
sounds great...)

All I would say - don't believe most of this "consultation with
commuters"
garbage; they were prepared to listen and make only superifical
changes, but
what you see in the 376 is largely what *they* wanted.

I thought we would be getting something much closer to a 375 than a
Networker (but with more space by the doors, and wider doors). I
wrote a
long follow-up document to Connex, but it would appear that most of
my
points were discarded, now I look back at it! In particular:

"Please include carpeting on these new suburban trains. Cold,
lino-style
flooring makes for a dull and dreary interior, reminiscent of tube
trains
and the current 465 Networkers. There are many very hard-wearing
carpet
materials available that are relatively easy to clean, and look very
smart."

I hate lino!

Nick


This is a very interesting post. However, what Connex did does not
surprise me. In hindsight it seems, in my opinion, that they did their
best to kill off rail travel in Kent, although for those commuters to
London, there was little choice but to accept the poor service.