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Railway “Seat Guru”

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Huntergreed

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Not sure if anyone is familiar with this, but I came across the site “seat guru” when researching seats for a flight recently. It’s essentially a far more detailed seating plan than is available on the airline website for as many aircraft in as many configurations as possible.

Main features include:

Clear colour coding of good seats, seats to avoid, things to be aware of, seats with mixed reviews etc...

A detailed description of every seat as you click on it, describing the position, any significant points, whether it has good window alignment etc...

It got me thinking, would this be possible/helpful to produce an equivalent website for train seating? It could certainly help many people with reserving/choosing a seat for a potentially 4-5+ hour journey. I would certainly be willing to get started on a project like that if it would be helpful to a significant amount of people.

The main features of this would be a seating plan for each reservable train in the UK, with a detailed map (showing window positions, seat directions and colour coded good/bad/priority seats) and a description of the advantages and/or disadvantages of each seat.
 
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Trackman

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I'd like a 3D type of thing were you could pan about or even an interactive thing so you could visit the loo or whatever.
 

AndyW33

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SeatGuru was a valuable resource for many years. It is less so nowadays because as so often happens it was sold by its enthusiastic creator to a large group, who aren't prepared to devote the effort to keeping it up to date. Data for US airlines is pretty good, but elsewhere they don't seem to keep pace with the changes airlines make to the interior layout of planes, or indeed the plane types allocated to particular services. The same is all too likely for the UK rail network, especially at periods where fleets are in transition, such as LNER and EMR at the moment, or Avanti in the future.
 

Mojo

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We tried to do our own seating plan project a few years ago. Whilst many members produced some outstanding designs, sometimes these things can fall flat when relying on “volunteers” (even in our case we offered vouchers and expenses paid at forum meets!)
 

raetiamann

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Over the years I've used the Seat Guru site many times, but I'd agree the updating has been spasmodic since the sale.

Maybe the TOCs could put something akin to this on their websites. EMT has seating diagrams for their Meridian & 125 services available on their website, but didn't promote it at all, in fact it took some finding. It really is required for the services taking seat reservations and would be helpful for their customers.
 

HBP

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I for one would find it very useful, especially if travelling on a TOC I don’t often travel on.
 

YorksLad12

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I just tried loading the Azuma pdf I have into Inkscape (a drawing package similar to Adobe Illustrator). You can load in each page separately and add, delete or (re-)colour objects that way. It might be possible to do the same with other operators' pdfs, if they have, so they could be edited consistently.

Really, this is something National Rail/Rail Delivery Group should be doing.
 

Master29

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I just tried loading the Azuma pdf I have into Inkscape (a drawing package similar to Adobe Illustrator). You can load in each page separately and add, delete or (re-)colour objects that way. It might be possible to do the same with other operators' pdfs, if they have, so they could be edited consistently.

Really, this is something National Rail/Rail Delivery Group should be doing.
Would be good in principal but seeing as only some TOC's do a reservation system it's unlikely the others would get involved. It would be a nice thought though.
 

yorkie

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No chance of RDG doing this.

But perhaps Trainsplit will be up for doing it; it comes down to time though.

Trainsplit already has enhanced info on some trains e.g. Pendolinos.

The forum could potentially sponsor or support the project in some way. I wouldn't want to manage it though; we made a start a few years ago and it was difficult to get volunteers and to collate the data. I don't think anyone could manage it on a voluntary basis unless they had a lot of time and commitment to spend on it.
 

lkpridgeon

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If the TOC's hold data such as design documents from the last refurbishment, would it be possible to request these? From there it wouldn't be too much effort to pull together something like the seating selector on LNER or Trainsplit.
 

Bletchleyite

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But perhaps Trainsplit will be up for doing it

Seat selection on all TOCs is certainly an excellent selling point for using Trainsplit/TCBC - seating plans that give more detail would be even more of a selling point. Though I suppose the question is how much the majority care about such things, i.e. how much extra business it would bring for the cost.
 

Senex

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Would be very handy! :)

Most useful to me would be a seating plan showing the actual window positions.
As one who finds one of the most important aspects of rail travel the ability to look out of the window, close up at the railway itself and further off at the countryside/cityscape being traversed, I so agree! Even the quite small offset between window and seats that you get in First in the 222s is enough to spoil the pleasure.
 

scotlass

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Would be very handy! :)

Most useful to me would be a seating plan showing the actual window positions.

I agree. LNER are adamant all their 1st class Azuma seats match up like the 91's did. They don't. I've been in a single seat that's part panel, part window. It was a 9-car and from memory, I think it was K26.
 

Bletchleyite

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I agree. LNER are adamant all their 1st class Azuma seats match up like the 91's did. They don't. I've been in a single seat that's part panel, part window. It was a 9-car and from memory, I think it was K26.

Unfortunately they decided to squash an extra seat in on that side compared with the facing layout so that caused the issue.
 

peteb

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You'll be aware of The Caledonian Sleeper discussion elsewhere on this forum site. I recently looked at booking on Caledonian Sleeper and it had a very good seating and cabin plan which allows you to select which seat or cabin you prefer. So if you wanted to "borrow" that I'm sure the CS regulars will be only too happy to provide their feedback on which cabins are noisy, suffer drainage smells etc..........might be a good one to start with?

Would be very handy! :)

Most useful to me would be a seating plan showing the actual window positions.
Oh yes, lack of aligning windows is the most frustrating thing about travelling by train whether in the UK or in Europe. You always hope you get a good alignment but often find a pillar part-obscuring a view. Even the otherwise excellent Chiltern Silver trains manage to slightly misalign their bays of four in their Mk3 carriages.
 

GodAtum

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I'm sure there are plenty of commuters on here who could help? for me, I could rate all the seats on a class 377.
 

YorksLad12

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TPE's Mark 5a coaches suffer from seat creep. I'd expected the tables (especially in the coach that is mostly tables) at least to align with the windows every time; but no! Only the ones in the middle of the coach do, then they get progressively further out of sync so that you end up with the pillar down the middle as you near the ends.

The forum could potentially sponsor or support the project in some way. I wouldn't want to manage it though; we made a start a few years ago and it was difficult to get volunteers and to collate the data. I don't think anyone could manage it on a voluntary basis unless they had a lot of time and commitment to spend on it.

Which is why I'm not volunteering ;)
 

ScotRail158725

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Not sure if anyone is familiar with this, but I came across the site “seat guru” when researching seats for a flight recently. It’s essentially a far more detailed seating plan than is available on the airline website for as many aircraft in as many configurations as possible.

Main features include:

Clear colour coding of good seats, seats to avoid, things to be aware of, seats with mixed reviews etc...

A detailed description of every seat as you click on it, describing the position, any significant points, whether it has good window alignment etc...

It got me thinking, would this be possible/helpful to produce an equivalent website for train seating? It could certainly help many people with reserving/choosing a seat for a potentially 4-5+ hour journey. I would certainly be willing to get started on a project like that if it would be helpful to a significant amount of people.

The main features of this would be a seating plan for each reservable train in the UK, with a detailed map (showing window positions, seat directions and colour coded good/bad/priority seats) and a description of the advantages and/or disadvantages of each seat.
the only “good seats” are above the engines on a class 170 or 158, everything else is ****e
 

alistairlees

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You'll be aware of The Caledonian Sleeper discussion elsewhere on this forum site. I recently looked at booking on Caledonian Sleeper and it had a very good seating and cabin plan which allows you to select which seat or cabin you prefer.
I like this post.
 

Requeststop

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It's a great idea and I would like it a lot as I do prefer to have a window seat with a table facing forwards. I do foresee one problem which I have come across before and that is when a train unexpectedly has been reversed, and so as is frequently normal with the first class at the front of the train when travelling to London has been for some operational reason been reversed and so all the seating has also been reversed. So that the seat facing forward on the right is now facing backwards on the left.

As I noticed yesterday travelling from Paddington to Plymouth GWR had no seat reservations. I was lucky that I had a seat on the left facing forward at the window. I had to change trains at Plymouth to get here in Penzance, and the seating in nearly all the coaches on the 125 (lucky us in Cornwall that we still have 4 car 125's as a local service); the seating was facing backwards. But who cares after a 40 hour journey from PNG to Cornwall.
 

Mcr Warrior

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Hope the TOCs don't go down the route of the airlines, and make user-selectable seats a chargeable extra.
 

route101

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the only “good seats” are above the engines on a class 170 or 158, everything else is ****e

The good seats on the 170s were the airline ones in middle coach,row of 3 . Tables in 158s are very slim and Scotrail 156s are like that now.
 

ScotRail158725

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Whats the 79 carriage?
the individual coaches on a 170 are numbered so for example 170101 is formed of 50101+56101+79101. the 79 carriage is the one that is numbered 79xxx, the “xxx” being the unit number
 

route101

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the individual coaches on a 170 are numbered so for example 170101 is formed of 50101+56101+79101. the 79 carriage is the one that is numbered 79xxx, the “xxx” being the unit number

Dont notice them details. Its a 170 to me , all look the same as with 158s.
 
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