RICHARD CLINNICK provides footage from on-board 700109 at the launch of the Govia Thameslink Railway Class 700 at London Blackfriars on May 24.
I do not pay £2,700 per annum to STAND for the whole of my 40 minutes journey into London everyday. These trains are designed for metro services NOT long distance travel from outside of London. DFT you should be ashamed of yourselves. Oh and the contact with Govia? Brewery and the P word come to mind. Southern, Thameslink and Gatwick Express services are a complete shambles, unreliable, unsafe and unhealthy.
As long as First class is omitted, or at least permanently declassified, to show that my derisory £2500pa of my wages shouldn't expect to get me a seat, and so we're all standing, and "in it together" then fine. But I dare your revenue protection to behave in their usual Schultzstaffel (look it up) manner, booking the frail and vulnerable for the temerity to sit when there's no second class sitting, and I promise you, I will speak up, and act. These trains just display perfectly the Govt and the Franchise's complete contempt for our hugely overpriced, unreliable and now ever more uncomfortable journeys.
I used a class 700 yesterday for the first time I am a wheelchair user the doors opened and straight in front of me was a pole right in the middle of the entrance. The wheelchair space to the left not very well signed the sign was approximately 8 inches down from the roof of the carriage. With writing in very small print you have to turn your wheelchair around to place the rear of the wheelchair against the partition this covers the emergency push button with your wheelchair. Did anyone try out the position with a wheelchair user before the trains were built? Probably someone with a tape measure said that is OK. Time and time again with disabled toilets have been built is the door wide enough yes but can you turn around no. Rant finished
Philip Walker - 25/05/2016 16:10
The design of the accommodation seems to be biased for short metro journeys in the central core. For the longer distance journeys the trains have to cater for, the first class is what one would expect for standard class, and standard seems rather cramped, and lacks tables in bay seating and fold-down shelves in the seat backs in airline seating.