(05 Dec 2017, 11:52 pm)northern156 wrote Going back to the discussion on the seating for the new fleet.
London Underground's S8 stock (used on the Metropolitan line) caters for both short, full journeys and longer distance ones (ie serving Watford, Amersham and Chesham) by having the horizontal seats you'd normally expect mixed with the standard sideways seating, with plenty of standing space, as the other S stock trains do.
Something like this I would like to see for the new T&W Metro fleet; I'd imagine a fair few journeys are from Sunderland to Newcastle Airport (for example connections from Grand Central) so for a journey of just shy of 90 mins, you'd want to have some more comfort as well as somewhere for bags.
That said, sideways seating would be an improvement from what we have now to accommodate more passengers.
I'm wondering if any platforms may have to be lengthened for the new stock?
I think the Met line is a good example.
Having used it on 'match days' at Wembley, it seems to work too.
Having the flexibility to cope with huge numbers of additional passengers in addition to regular passenger numbers, is key.
Something the Metro could learn from.