• Our booking engine at tickets.railforums.co.uk (powered by TrainSplit) helps support the running of the forum with every ticket purchase! Find out more and ask any questions/give us feedback in this thread!

Class 810 for East Midlands Railway Construction/Introduction Updates

Sponsor Post - registered members do not see these adverts; click here to register, or click here to log in
R

RailUK Forums

superalbs

Established Member
Joined
3 Jul 2014
Messages
2,489
Location
Exeter
Yep, that definitely seems to be it! Hopefully better than the Sophia, though it does seem to be yet another case of a regional seat used on an InterCity train. I wonder if it's the same one Avanti are having?
It's actually reasonably comfortable. I had no qualms with it on an hour journey, so two hours should be fine. Obviously the cushion itself will probably be different, but on the whole, seems to be alright.

Fairly sure 387s have the normal flat version but I could be wrong.
You're not.
 

HarryL

Member
Joined
14 Sep 2020
Messages
243
Location
Leeds
An underrated feature of seats and one you often see in Europe and not the UK is foot rests, I hope these will have them since they're European design.

Personally the most comfortable I've ever been on a train weirdly was when I was travelling with Northern and the seat infront was on a raised box, so you could put your feet up. More intercity operators should include foot rests in their seat designs.
 

Martin222002

Member
Joined
6 Nov 2011
Messages
256
Location
Chesterfield, Derbyshire
Found the seat! Looks like it's whatever this is, on the Hitachi Caravaggio units in service with Trenitalia and Trenord:
View attachment 87360
It's actually reasonably comfortable. I had no qualms with it on an hour journey, so two hours should be fine. Obviously the cushion itself will probably be different, but on the whole, seems to be alright.
Good spot Superalbs! Given that they are fitted to another Hitachi product makes sense that these could now be a seating option on offer. Good too to hear that they a comfortable seat. It does make the choice to go with the FISA LEAN first class variant for first class on the 810s an interesting choice, and not go with the standard variant LEAN for standard.
 

Domh245

Established Member
Joined
6 Apr 2013
Messages
8,425
Location
nowhere
I think it may be a Lean, just not the same variants we've seen in other UK stock to date. The advertising material for the seat highlights the modularity of the seat, and also advertises two different types of padding that can be used - LEAN 'comfort' with the prominent wings around the headrest, and a LEAN 'basic' which doesn't. The profiling around the reverse of the back near the armrest looks very similar
 

Bletchleyite

Veteran Member
Joined
20 Oct 2014
Messages
98,413
Location
"Marston Vale mafia"
I think it may be a Lean, just not the same variants we've seen in other UK stock to date. The advertising material for the seat highlights the modularity of the seat, and also advertises two different types of padding that can be used - LEAN 'comfort' with the prominent wings around the headrest, and a LEAN 'basic' which doesn't. The profiling around the reverse of the back near the armrest looks very similar

I don't think it is. The LEAN has two very prominent features which are missing - the shape of the armrest and the "round bit" from the support.

leanxnews05.jpg

FISA LEAN seats
 

Domh245

Established Member
Joined
6 Apr 2013
Messages
8,425
Location
nowhere
I don't think it is. The LEAN has two very prominent features which are missing - the shape of the armrest and the "round bit" from the support.

Hmm, I see what you mean. I still think it's possible that they've just swapped the armrest for a different design (although I must say, it doesn't look particularly comfy being completely flat) and the "round bit" is missing because it's not cantilevered in the picture of the italian unit.

Some digging revealed a video from 'feruglio engineering' shows the seat 'base' manufacturing for the Rock/Carvaggios, and confirms it to at least be a FISA product

 

Bletchleyite

Veteran Member
Joined
20 Oct 2014
Messages
98,413
Location
"Marston Vale mafia"
If that's the back, it's completely the wrong shape for a LEAN, in particular there isn't the "signature" knee-niche.

If it is a FISA product, as it seems it is, it looks more like the Regiorail range, which also have the flatter armrests, though the top is a slightly different (older?) shape. Or it could be a custom variant.

 

Energy

Established Member
Joined
29 Dec 2018
Messages
4,557
Looks more like a LEAN than any of FISA's other products. Headrest does not like a Regiorail.
 

Bletchleyite

Veteran Member
Joined
20 Oct 2014
Messages
98,413
Location
"Marston Vale mafia"
Looks more like a LEAN than any of FISA's other products. Headrest does not like a Regiorail.

You can put any shape of cushion on the base. Look at Turbostars - two types of base but both with identical cushions (plus the high back cushion shape that you only get on the Chapman base).

Indeed, putting a slightly thicker base cushion on the "infamous" Sophia would fix it for me, it's otherwise just like a Grammer E3000.
 

superalbs

Established Member
Joined
3 Jul 2014
Messages
2,489
Location
Exeter
I think it's just a bespoke design for Hitachi Caravaggio units, which seemingly has been carried over thanks to the Hitachi ties?
 

Bletchleyite

Veteran Member
Joined
20 Oct 2014
Messages
98,413
Location
"Marston Vale mafia"
They're still using the Class 170 (FISA LEAN) image for Standard, so not really...

Mind you, even if they are Sophias in Standard that isn't necessarily all bad. There isn't a lot wrong with the Sophia base and frame, and it has some very good features like the pull-out table extension. What's bad is the cushion, particularly the base. Replace that and you've probably got a fairly decent seat quite similar to the Grammer E3000 used on Desiros.

Sophias (a higher backed variant) are used in 1st on 700s and I don't recall the "feeling the metal base" issue on those.
 

Energy

Established Member
Joined
29 Dec 2018
Messages
4,557
Latest EMR seat design video on youtube. Are we any closer to an answer?

Definitely an existing product, the two possibilities I'd say are the Fainsa Sophia, already used in other Hitachis, and the FISA Lean, used across the Abellio franchises.

At a guess, Fainsa Sophia with a better cushion, not necessarily a bad thing though, the main issues with the Sophia is the cushion and how hard it is.
 

Domh245

Established Member
Joined
6 Apr 2013
Messages
8,425
Location
nowhere
Definitely an existing product, the two possibilities I'd say are the Fainsa Sophia, already used in other Hitachis, and the FISA Lean, used across the Abellio franchises.

The last episode of "Rail UK: Seat detectives" concluded it looked FISA-y, so with the admission that they took an existing 'comfortable' seat and modified it, I think that's looking more and more certain to be some customised FISA. The backs of the seats from what we've seen definitely doesn't look Fainsa-y
 

PG

Established Member
Joined
12 Oct 2010
Messages
2,892
Location
at the end of the high and low roads
The last episode of "Rail UK: Seat detectives" concluded it looked FISA-y, so with the admission that they took an existing 'comfortable' seat and modified it, I think that's looking more and more certain to be some customised FISA. The backs of the seats from what we've seen definitely doesn't look Fainsa-y
Kind of like the design brief was, this is the seat we're having - see if you can do anything to improve it without 'rubbishing' it publicly!
 

Bletchleyite

Veteran Member
Joined
20 Oct 2014
Messages
98,413
Location
"Marston Vale mafia"
The last episode of "Rail UK: Seat detectives" concluded it looked FISA-y, so with the admission that they took an existing 'comfortable' seat and modified it, I think that's looking more and more certain to be some customised FISA. The backs of the seats from what we've seen definitely doesn't look Fainsa-y

There was a suggestion above of an entirely different FISA seat (not the LEAN because it didn't have the "niche") as found on some Italian trains but with a new cushion.

What would be interesting to know would be if it's the same one Avanti West Coast are using.
 

Nymanic

Member
Joined
6 Jan 2014
Messages
146
Location
Manchester
Again, there's considerable reluctance to show what the Standard seat looks like (0:35-0:38). And if I'm not mistaken, that Standard render is from a 170 again! The 'window sill' design differs from that in the Aurora pics.

Why are EMR so reluctant to show us what they're using for the new trains...?
 

hwl

Established Member
Joined
5 Feb 2012
Messages
7,441
The last episode of "Rail UK: Seat detectives" concluded it looked FISA-y, so with the admission that they took an existing 'comfortable' seat and modified it, I think that's looking more and more certain to be some customised FISA. The backs of the seats from what we've seen definitely doesn't look Fainsa-y
It is worth remembering that Fainsa merged with Compin in 2015 so perfectly possible that they have got round to a major design refresh at some point with learning from Compin?
 

Domh245

Established Member
Joined
6 Apr 2013
Messages
8,425
Location
nowhere
It is worth remembering that Fainsa merged with Compin in 2015 so perfectly possible that they have got round to a major design refresh at some point with learning from Compin?

Possibly, although the publicity material for the seat (albeit, probably using old pictures) still shows that they have a 'protrusion' running from underneath the armrest to the front edge of the seat - it'd be a fairly major redesign for that to be ditched I'd have thought.

Especially as the seat back/side from what appears to be the only actual render of the standard class interior (posts 653/665) look a lot like the FISA seat shown being made in post 699. It's possible that Compin redesigned the Sofia to look a lot like something that FISA build, but balance of probabilities...
 

Maddog83

Member
Joined
4 Jun 2019
Messages
23
And discuss....
 

Attachments

  • FB_IMG_1610700629593.jpg
    FB_IMG_1610700629593.jpg
    259 KB · Views: 214
  • FB_IMG_1610700633895.jpg
    FB_IMG_1610700633895.jpg
    269.1 KB · Views: 213

samuelmorris

Established Member
Joined
18 Jul 2013
Messages
5,121
Location
Brentwood, Essex
Those seats pictured are FISA LEANs, but they are only First Class, again...it is like they've got something to hide about Standard :)
I think that's almost beyond doubt at this point - you don't put out marketing about seats if one of them hasn't been finalised. The design of the standard class seat is clearly being obfuscated. No reason to do that if you've nothing to hide!
 

Top