Trip to Widnes on 158 864 of East Modlands Trains
 

Today i traveled on this ex FGW / W&B Alpah Line 158 and i must say that it was in very good shape inside mutch better than the CT ones.

But cannot understand why someone on this forum said that the seats where not very comfortable on these as i found it resonalbley comfrotable.

And the fact that iam a big person it was mutch more comfotable than a 156 as i was not squashed by the table pleanty of room there.

It apered very clean too mutch too say Stagecoach seem to be cleanning up the trains more recently in side and out side a great improvement from Central Trains namley on the 158's.

It was working the 10.52 From Liverool to Norwich Via Widnes & Warrington etc i traveled on it from Liverpool Lime Street to Widnes art a fee of £1.30 return from Hough Green where my ticket takes me too and came back on 142 060 well worth £1.30 i say.

Also widnes station it self still has a Bristish Rail Station Sighn On the side of the Station, something for those of you whoh colect such sighn i would try and get it before it goes for scrap as Widnes Station is to be refurbished soon.

Yes Northern are spending some of that money they have saved by running 156's on L/pool to Wigan Services instead of using two 142's at busy times.

I find that the legroom is too tight for me on all the 158's that I have used. That's why I really like the ATW 175's where even the non-table seats have plenty of legroom.

Still anything is better than a 156 !

One thing I have always found interesting about the 158s are that the original ones on the Welsh services now with ATW had 156 style seats, whereas the newer ones like TPX originals and CT have bigger and wider seat styles.

Do the former TPX and CT ones also have more legroom David?

David you say 156 style seating but there are two different one on 156's that i know of but i think you mean like the North west express ones as these are better than the ones on the ex ATN/Noprthern Spirit 156's.

Also you will find that some 153's that are arround have the same seating as 158's as i think ewhen the put new seats in the 158's they used the best of the old ones to refurbish the 153's.

Its amazing how many different types of seating there are on the railwaysd these days prehaps this is another thread to be opend.

An interesting point, I am not that sure but I thought I would make a photo comparison.

I have two table shots of both the ATW 158 seating and the Central 158 seating:

http://images.fotopic.net/ygabgd.jpg

http://images.fotopic.net/ypxb6g.jpg

From looking at these interestingly it looks like the ATW 158 has a tiny bit more legroom on this table setofseats compared to the Central. I think that coach A on an ATW 158 has 63 seats, anyone know the amount of seats on the others?

Some of the ex TPE ones and CT ones have had seats removed but yet on the ex TPE ones there are side facing fold down seats in the vestaval areas on two and three car units so theese ones would have more seats.

Aslo on the SWT 158's (883 & 890) they seemed to be fully seated non removed or put back.

Do we include th drivers seat and second persons ("oops nearly said M*Ns")seat when counting beacuse i may have a walk through and count them.

From the photo i think they are about the same but does seem like the bottom of the seat could be longer on the ATW one.

Just counting the passenger seats (the main airline and table ones) I think arriva do the system of each seat having a unique number as 63 sounds right but I know Central had a seating system where there were identical numbers around a table (e.g. 12F and 12B) so might mean the end seat number may not total the overall amount of seats in the coach. I might be on an ATW 175 tomorrow so I will see how many are on there in comparison.

Speaking of Arriva Trains Wales and 158's do you which Journey from Manchester to Newton Le Willows on Saturdays are operated by 158's please.