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Are all the trains the dreadful two car commuter ones with the near vertical seats stuffed in and no tables?
Nope. The main line from Manchester down to Cardiff is almost always a class 175. The crappy Pacer commuter types only go on the Heart of Wales line up as far as Shrewsbury I think.
I can confirm it is the dreadul two car commuter. We did it the other weekend for a stag doo in Cardiff.
The one going down wasn't too bad, but the one coming back was proper old school with rattly doors and uprigth seats. Not ideal when you've got a raging hangover
When I used to do that run regularly, it was either the service you described, or tatty versions of the pre-update FGW trains to London.
Either way, they were terrible. As was Arriva's service generally.
The main line from Manchester down to Cardiff is almost always a class 175
Not sure if those are the ones I mean or not.
When I was using it to go to college and uni in the mid-late 90s, they were new two car jobs but with plenty of tables and decent well spaced seats. They then ripped the nice well spaced seats and tables out some time in the early 2000s and replace them with really upright seats nicked off some other train that were hideous.
The 175 in the pictures I don't *think* is the same train. 'Pacers' aren't the ones I'm thinking of. How many tables do you get per carriage jakd95?
Sometimes they're 4 car crappy ones.
I used to use the service to get to college daily up to Shrewsbury and then regularly to get up to Manchester to go over to uni in Leeds up until last year. The mainline trains are almost always the Class 175 which are two car and have four tables in each car if I remember rightly. Not particularly comfortable and they only have plug sockets on the table seats. Space for two bikes per trainset. They'll occasionally join two trainsets together to have a four car set.
Very occasionally (1 in 20 journeys) it'd be an older Class 158 (I think) that was actually more comfortable.
The 'Pacers' are even worse but only run on the line that goes from Shrewsbury out past Knighton and into mid-Wales.
Which ever one it is it's likely to be late and rammed, Arriva Trains Wales are shite.