Things we may not see again

[whole diary]

[Visoflex]

Things we may not see again on local and Inter-City services - comfortable seats.  Are what we have now an improvement?  Really?  The DFT^▸ (Department for Transport) wonk who specified them should be forced to sit in them until retirement (if they haven't already gone)   

Obviously no mistake was made, and it will be too expensive to change them.

[rogerw]

An interesting letter on the subject of seats in the next edition of Rail, out tomorrow I won't go into the details but it is all down to fire safety regulations.

[Visoflex]

Hiding behind "regulations" is a well established cop-out.  It should not be beyond the whit of man to develop a comfortable seat which resists fire.

[Robin Summerhill]

Hiding behind "regulations" is a well established cop-out.  It should not be beyond the whit of man to develop a comfortable seat which resists fire.

Quite. And I also seem to remember that this Health & Safety argument has been comprehensively demolished already.

All that said, I was on the last HST^▸ (High Speed Train (Inter City class 43 125 units)) out of Paddington last Saturday and, although it may be that the seats on those were getting a little tired and worn by now, they didn't actually feel that much more comfortable to me than those on the IETs^▸ (Intercity Express Train - replacement for HSTs (manufactured by Hitachi in Kobe, Japan))!

But none of them are a patch on Mk1 compartment stock. Who needed a sleeper when you had those on an overnight trip?