Class 378s

Well, I've had my first ride on a 378 today and here's my immediate impression of them:

On the downside:

1 The seats are very hard, too upright (what is it with bolt-upright seating in new stock? Who actually likes this and finds it comfortable?) and too few of them - resulting in many standing passengers, which made it feel rather crowded.

2 The airconditioning was nowhere near strong enough and the train had a very airless, claustrophobic feel as a result.

3 The windows are rather small and hard to see anything out of opposite - further contributing to this claustrophobic, "closed-in" feeling.

4 The autmoted announcements have a strange "muffled" qaulity about them and are rather quiet - making them rather hard to hear over the hubbub and chatter of other passengers. It sounded like:

Fif if Weft Fromftonf. fhangef for undun underfroundf diftrictft ine

On the way back, the announcments weren't working at all for some reason.

5 Line-diagram maps not over the seats - which would be sensible - but over the doors instead, where you can't see them if you're seated.

6 The dot-matric display ought to be over the seats, like on the underground, rather than in the crossways in the centre of the carriage - as it's hard to see when crowded.

7 Still takes ages to de-train all the passengers upon arrival at Clapham Junction.

On the plus side:


1 Very quiet.

2 Very smooth-running. None of the unpleasant jolting and lurching on startoff that the 313s have.

Overall: not very keen so far. I agree the 313s had had their day and needed replacing, but these don't feel like much of an improvement to me.

I would imagine the acceleration is much better too which leads to faster journeys. When I compare the 313s used by First CC or the 315s used by NEEA to the 377s used by Southern or the 357s used by C2C the difference is remarkable. I also think that whenever you de-train passengers at a reasonably central terminus, it takes a fair while. The DLR at Bank is similar example in terms of capacity of one service and length of time to completely de-train. But I take you point about the upright seating.

Someones gonna have to bite the bullet eventually to close rotherhithe and extend Canada Water to the north to take 6 or even 8 car trains. It will cost mega millions, if its even possible, but it'll have to be done at some point.

It is certainly not very far, you could see the light from Canada Water if standing on the platform at Rotherhithe. You can see this from the picture at en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Even_Further_Inside_Rotherhithe_Tube_Station.jpg However, it is probably too far for a continous platform.

007 & 015 were the pair out and about today

What diagrams are the 378's operating on this week ??

Having travelled on one last week my initial thoughts were -

A) Line diagram should be above windows as on LUL. I was sitting by the cab and the maps above the doorways weren't clear from that angle

B) Lighting seems a bit gloomy, perhaps due to 1] the covers fitted, and b] the reduced window areas where the external LED box is situated

Whilst I'm not keen on the all-perimeter seating layout it at least defeats the feet-on-seats brigade, even if everyone else has to suffer as a result...

378 007 was on the 15.37 Stratford - Richmond today, which was 10mins earlier than that posted above, luckily i was already on the platform from the '38 Stock trip.

Air-con worked well in the warmer weather. Seats were a bit hard after 60mins to Rmd!

30th July was 007's first day in service

Unit 378 016 is the unit in operation today.

Do you mean 378015? I thought that 378016 was still being tested. It was delivered after 378013, and 013 hasn't entered service yet.

There's a 378 working the **35 past the hour from Clapham Junction - Willesden Junction service (then returning back the other way) today, if anyone's interested.

This was the case earlier today, at any rate. As this was the case last saturday, too, I guess this may be a regular working on saturdays.

378007 doing the honours, from next week it is planned to have two circuits. Rather then just have the one it has been on for the last couple of weeks.

East Thames Buses' drivers get a sort of version of the LU drivers' uniform.....though not for much longer.