The gangway connection is in the raised position -- in normal service it hinges back to be roughly parallel to the angle of the front face.
It's a perfectly servicable model in the modern way -- nothing aesthetically very subtle, with a few tacked-on quirky angles to give it "interest" (look at the pointlessly complex shape of the light clusters):
Inside, it continues the current design trend towards spartan "prison chic":
Even for the first production model, it looks to me like more attention has been paid to ease of production and maintenance than to creating an attractive, cosseting feel -- look at the clumsiness in the design of the table supports, or the shiny floor surfaces, or in the ugly seat fixings.
I can see how these cruel, cold surfaces make it easier to deal with vandalism and to clean, but I struggle to see how this is an attractive enough interior to get people to abandon the sybaritic luxury of their cars:
As car interiors get ever more luxurious, train interiors are getting more cramped and spartan. How does this make sense?
Unless, of course, it's a ploy to drive people off the railways and into private cars?
I confess, those first three interiors were from the luxury end of the market, but even the lower levels are in a different league from the brand-new train -- here's the latest bog-standard Ford:
Joined-up-ness? Nah, we'd rather make the proles travel in mobile prisons -- it's all they deserve, after all.
4 comments:
I fear you're right - utilitarianism rules, so tough cookie! If a hard core of passengers (sorry, "customers") will continue to treat trains so deplorably one can either employ an army of enforcement staff or cut standards to the bone and the accountants demand the latter. Somehow I don't think that kind of "customer" would ever aspire to driving a Ford, well not legally!
Well at least the newer trains will ride smoothly and be air conditioned, even if they do have all style and luxury of a horse box.
I suppose its only when you look at the first generation of EMUs from the early 60s, with their deep padded seats, opening windows and drivers view partition screens that you realise how we've also gone backwards in many ways.
I like the look of the Jag XKs interior by the way. Old fashioned but classy.
Air-conditioning? In Scotland? Yes, that will be useful on -- what? -- maybe 2 days each year, and for the remaining 363 these units will be lugging around an extra 10 tonnes of pointless equipment per coach. Not sure that helps their Green credentials.
Of course, health & safety people like air-conditioning because it means the morons -- sorry, I mean "the public" -- can be locked into the train and thus avoid damaging themselves by sticking their stupid heads out of the windows. I fail to see why the same logic doesn't apply to cars, though -- surely they should also have sealed windows?
I'm not sure I agree with anonymous, either: experience from unemployment offices in the 1980s suggests that if you convert them into vandal-proof spaces (everything screwed-down, no soft furnishings so everything can be hosed), you actually Brutalise the people using the facilities and create more violence. When they experimented by taking away the bullet-proof glass and installing pot plants, violence and vandalism plummeted.
I think the same logic applies to trains and, indeed, all public spaces -- make them as high-quality as you can, because the people (ie, us) deserve it.
Ironically, many of the 1st generation multiple units had low passenger comfort -- bus seats were all too frequently used in Standard Class for short- and medium-haul units. No-one who has experienced a Class 105 can deny that modern units have a vastly more comfortable ride quality. But that is no reason to make modern units so Spartan. Why do the cushions have to be so mean and thin? Why do the arm-rests have to be so narrow? Why does ventilation trunking have to be installed at floor level to take up the space where your feet should rest? Why do almost all the seats have to be airline style with no light and no view?
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