please empty your brain below
Facing forward or backwards let's your body compensate for the train's acceleration and (especially) braking much more easily than sitting sideways.
I recall fondly many pleasant late morning, 'forward-facing' trips on the Bakerloo when the Eurostar ran from Waterloo...
Hello to anyone in the QueueForTheShard and thanks to DG for alerting us!
If the train isn't too busy, I am likely to seek these out and create my own forward-facing seat by sitting on one sideways with my back to the glass divider and with my legs in the area of the un-tipped-down adjacent seat.
Looking out of the windows there is always something interesting to help while away the journey.
(two rolling stocks ago, before the W&C was adopted by the underground, the carriages had tiny slit windows, recognising that daylight would never flood in)
I wonder if seating is changing for other countries.
The Waterloo &City has only had three types of rolling stock. It was the previous (1940) stock that had the tiny windows. The original 1898 stock had a superabundance of them.
I'm not convinced that longitudinal seating frees up that much space. Much of the central floor area is occupied by seated passengers feet. (Although in many modern trains the transverse seats are so close together that anyone of above average height (I.e. 50% of the population) have to sit at an angle, with their feet in the gangway, anyway)
It probably encourages people to move down the carriages though as the aisles are wider.
The difference is often marginal. On the DLR you actually have the same number of seats as before on the trains that have gone to "nearly all longitudinal". The reason it was done is because trains would be overcrowded in the doorway but the gangway midway between doors would be unused. Confirming what Wolf says, having entirely longitudinal means that there is no "demarcation line" where standees seem reluctant to go beyond.
Changing the seats on the DLR to almost entirely longitudinal was not a simple matter due to the need to relocate equipment and the different forces applied to the underframe. It was thought worth doing for the additional capacity created with no loss of seats.
It was probably only limited technology and the size of equipment that mean that deep tube trains ever had forward and rear facing seats. I am sure Yerkes would have had longitudinal seats from the outset (following City & South London practice) had it have been technically possible.
It should only be used on lines that are mainly in tunnels.
Now I try to ride on a bus instead of the tube or overground, but I still like the suburban trains that are not tfl.
It's annoying during rush hour, as everyone standing crowds around the doors, and there's a lot of free space in the aisle between seat that no one wants to use as it will be too difficult to squeeze out past everybody.
There's also no view to admire on most of the lines, anyway (with the notable exception of 2, 5 and 6). I think it was originally designed this way so that groups can sit together.
The original "Padded cell" cars on the City & South London Railway had all-longitudinal seating. Of course, there was no underfloor equipment to speak of on those, as they were hauled by locomotives.
I had understand that it was the longitudinal seating, not the transverse, that was dictated by the presence of underfloor equipment on Tube stock - in particular the wheels, which protrude above floor level. This is also why the traditional London bus layout (RT, RM etc, had longitudinal seats nearest the platform (i.e above the rear wheels).
But it can be difficult to change from one layout to the other, as equipment is fitted under both types of seat and needs to be moved if the seating arrangements are changed. seats.
Yerkes would have got away with all-standing if he could ("straphangers are our profit margin") but the sharply curved roofline of a tube train makes it impossible for most people to stand close to the sides.
It's a bit like the seemingly poorer view from the smaller windows on the top decks of some hybrid double decker buses.
This is less easy with face-to-back seating - although you can put your feet under the seat in front, you can't put your knees under it. It is also much harder to get in and out of the window seats in a face to back layout - usually requiring the person in the gangway seat to get up first, and blocking the gangway in the process: all this adds to dwell times.
In the days of non-corridor stock a few trains were built on the Southern Railway with 11 compartments (132 seats), the seats being so close together that peoples knees would be touching. However, this left no room at all for standing passengers (or indeed getting-in-and -out passengers) so later trains were built with only ten compartments.
However, in modern trains with more room to circulate and stand in, the seats could be closed up a bit.
On the older trains they used to have on the Gospel Oak - Barking line (the first sliding door trains they had with just a narrow corridor between the rows of seats) on more than one occasion i was unable to get to the doors in time to get off because there were so many people in the way who couldn't easily get out of the way due to the narrowness of the passage through.
TridentScan | Privacy Policy