A glimpse of the future? Seeing Vivarail’s rebuilt Tube trains…

09 September 2015

We have done a lot of research into what passengers want to see from new and refurbished trains: see some of our recent work, including work on potential HS2 trains:

High Speed Two: Putting the passenger at the heart of design

Future Merseyrail rolling stock – what passengers want

We have no ambitions of becoming train designers, but having seen and used some newer trains we felt it was important passengers are more involved in train interior design.

So, it was interesting to have an opportunity to see for real the older London Underground trains that Vivarail are proposing to rebuild and update. A small group from Transport Focus went to see for themselves.

The trains look promising: cheaper than new, interiors can be configured in a number of ways to suit need different markets, are diesel powered so could fill in gaps while electric wires are put up, and designed to be easy to maintain. The key will be the interior layout I think – our MerseyRail research showed a dislike for ‘London-style’ bench seating along the length of the train. Interesting to see what buyers plump for.

Often passengers think refurbished trains are actually new – they can feel like it.

Any takers?