Lighting on trains is a tricky subject. Most people associate "bright" with "cheerful" but I can see that in some cases bright lighting might be a nuisance. I suppose it all depends on what you want to do during your journey e.g. read, sleep, look out of window, use laptop etc. Ideally separate lighting and controls should be provided at each seat but this is never likely to happen on the type of trains that ATW have. There is also the question of safety and security. I think most people nowadays prefer to be in a brightly lit area especially when there are fewer people around.
Quote:
|
One off-topic question, today ATW employees (or at least they were wearing the uniform) were driving a FGW train from portsmouth harbour, is it normal for employees of one TOC to drive the trains of another?
|
It does sometimes happen when it is more cost-effective especially on routes where the services are provided by more than one TOC. e.g. When the Virgin Trains services from London - Holyhead were Class 47 hauled between Crewe and Holyhead they were driven by ATW drivers. Now that the number of services have been increased Virgin provide their own drivers. Another reason might be that FGW do not have enough drivers "signed" for a particular type of train or route so they hire in experienced drivers from ATW until theirs are trained.