YES. IT. IS. A. SIMPSONS. MEME.
“Marge, the rains are 'ere” has been a staple of the Simpsons memeverse since time immemorial.
Delete this.
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Sadly it has caught on
I want to strangle the person who said that!
It’s not just me either. Check out the reddit thread. Top post. https://www.reddit.com/r/sydney/comments/84ges5/new_intercity_nsw_trains_will_have_half_of/
But this is different to the Perth configuration (seats on either side of the carriage).
I have no issues with face to face with the Perth Configuration but this Sydney configuration where its groups of 4 seats that are facing each other (especially if they put tables inbetween, wtf?) is just dumb because it doesn’t even make any additional space for standing room like the Perth configuration does.
It’s already been confirmed that the configuration will be like Perth’s (same as what we have on the Tangara fleet here) with half the carriage facing one way and the other half facing the other way. The only groupings will those created at the end of the carriages which can’t be avoided (even with reversible seating you end up with one set of seats facing each other).
Like this but with four seats across instead of five (and much nicer individual seats rather than benches). It won’t be quite as classy as the current old-school trains but it will be more than adequate for 2-3hr trips and comparable with long-distance trains in Europe
It was reported as being like this on the news last night.
Personally, I HATE the idea of facing backwards for up to 3 hours, as I am one of those up in Newcastle who is facing this scenario when traveling to Sydney on the new trains.
And to be facing someone I don’t know for the same length of time is equally off putting.
The other option for me is to book a seat on a Country XPT train, though there are usually only 3 or 4 a day that stop here, and is 3-4 times the price of a seat on the Intercity Train. It is 20 mins quicker too (@ 2 hrs 20) but still not particularly quick. I wish we had a VFT, but I figure we’ll be waiting decades for that still!
The proposed seating arrangement above is similar to that for Metro Trains here in Melbourne (both Comeng and X’Trapolis trains) but I don’t think it will work on InterCity trains.
V/line trains have fixed seating and travel to regional destinations, both the old n sets which do the long distance and newer Velocity trains. Only first class N set carriages have reversible seating. I remember the old S class compartments, how would the poor folk of NSW manage a 300km trip cooped up like that!
Gosh what a bunch of sooks in that thread. 
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I’m guessing this is why they’re going fixed seating lol
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The annual RACV On Track Survey of Victorian railway stations has rated Wyndham Vale as the best in the state and Donnybrook as the worst. Three stations on the Frankston line (Bentleigh, Ormond and McKinnon), which were redeveloped during the level crossings removals of 2016-2017, all saw their rating improve and made the top 10.
I have no problem sitting backwards on the trains. I think people are indeed a bunch of sooks in Sydney when they say they literally cannot sit backwards on a train for an hour without projectile vomiting or feeling motion sick. That early artist’s impression is going to cause headaches for the government because it’s the opposite of what they are saying will happen - which is the Tangara style seating where there’s only one group of seats facing each other in the centre of the carriage.
Being able to rotate the seat would be a nice thing, though if it turns out to be stupid expensive (on this order of $2.1 billion I’d say $20 million would be the max I’d allow for cost) to do then I’d probably have to side with the government.
There are two ways that it could be done - one would be to allow the seat to swivel around like they’re done on trains in Japan (which also have tray tables and all that crap), but I suspect that the most efficient seat pitch is too small to permit this kind of thing.
There’s also the option to have the traditional flippy seats, but then I think the seats would need to be less comfortable and would not have tray tables (though I’d suggest to the government that encouraging passengers to eat on the train is a recipe for disaster).
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Seats on the current Brisbane-Sydney XPT train are flipped daily to face the direction of travel. This occurs at each end. It’s no big deal.
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What the??
Yes, because it uses the same track for most of the line as the Gold Coast line. Therefore, because there’s only a maximum of 24 trains an hour possible south of the river due to a bottle neck, capacity is diverted to the Gold Coast and Cleveland lines
The last couple of years on day trips to Sydney I’ve started driving most of the way to and parking at Hornsby Station and catching the train into the city.
By doing this while going to a recent cricket match I got home at 1:30am where as if I got the train to and from Broadmeadow I wouldn’t get home until 3am
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Shows you just how slow the train ride is towards Newcastle (and Wollongong for that matter too).
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Yes, I went to the NRL double header on Saturday night at Homebush.
Got the train home, left the ground at 9:20pm, got home at 1am!
Didn’t help that it stopped at every station between Hornsby and Newcastle.
And that the train was full with heaps of people standing until Hornsby.
It also shows you how shit the road network is once you reach the metropolitan area. Berowra is usually the place where commuters park to get a train into the CBD after using the freeway from their places on the Central Coast.
On the south coast, people drive all the way from Wollongong to Waterfall via the freeway and park their cars at Waterfall before taking the train into the city. Actually not a bad idea. It’s a smart idea on weekdays if you want to avoid the Princes Highway congestion.
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I used to do that in Melbourne as well. I lived in Pakenham and drove to Dandenong if I went to a Storm game or MCG
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The train service between Sydney and Newcastle definitely needs an upgrade. Why does it still take so long (at least 2.5 hours) by train between the two cities!
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