Better use of the ‘166s’

So the Class 166s from the Thames Valley are being cascaded to the Bristol area, to replace the totally inadequate three-car Class 158s that we have been lumbered with for the past umpteen years.

My ongoing nightmare is that a dramatic announcement will be made of a 25% increase in the number of seats on the Cardiff to Portsmouth line (via Bristol) - then the ‘small print’ reveals that the four-abreast ‘158s’ will be replaced by five-abreast ‘166s’!

But could I offer a few thoughts as to how a massive improvement could be made to the present rolling stock line-up, using the cascaded ‘166s’?

Break down 20 (of the 21) three-car ‘166s’ and make ten four-car units and ten two-car units - all full corridor and with four-abreast seating. I understand that 11 train sets are required to operate the Cardiff/Portsmouth route - this is almost done at a stroke.

Some additional train sets are required for the Weymouth/ Brighton/Great Malvern services. These could be met with the ten two-car units ‘left over’ - either singly or in pairs as four-car non through-corridor trains.

Today, I travelled in a newly fully refurbished Great Western Railway Class 158. Very nice - new colour scheme, new carpets, new upholstery, new on-board info boards, everything clean and sparkly… but my knees were still jammed up against the back of the seat in front of me!

The seats in the Class 444 I travelled in later in the day may not have been quite as swish as those in the ‘158’, but at least I did have adequate leg room and didn’t have to join a queue to enter/exit through the silly narrow doors on the ‘158’.

Come on GWR - how about it? Four cars, through corridor, decent-sized doors, leg room to suit normal-sized human beings, air-con with more than a 25% chance of working! John Newbury, Warminster