We’ve been saying it for years, that because HS2 is planned to be a super-fast inter-city service, it’d be nothing more than a fast train for fat cats. Well now it’s been confirmed this is exactly what it’s planned to be as, it’s been revealed the seats are going to have to be wider to accommodate increasingly obese passengers.
Chris Rayner, managing director of railway operations at HS2 said:
“HS2 trains will need to offer space for taller people and much higher instances of obesity among passengers.”
A spokesman for HS2 Ltd went so far as to say there would be step free access onto trains and “This would let you roll straight on.”
Though that might be in reference to prams and wheelchairs, opposed to port-addled executives.
HS2 Ltd executive realises train seats need to be bigger
Maybe the previous hare brained concept that HS2 might have a gym on it doesn’t now seem like such a daft idea? Probably more likely though would be going with the ‘Titanic on Wheels’ proposals for food which you can see being cooked and a waiter service, which were suggested in the same report as having a gym.
But the thing is, if the seats and consequently the aisles on HS2 are going to have to be wider, then that has to mean there would be fewer seats than had previously been planned.
So surely the real news story here is that HS2 Ltd have, despite the fact that the whole argument for HS2 is ‘needed’ for capacity reasons, made a decision that it would offer less capacity than previously planned.
Of course, not one of the journalists who picked up on this story last week spotted that HS2 Ltd were undermining their whole ‘need’ for capacity argument……
The whole scheme is excessively expensive & the money could be used to impove so many other lines. Also probably out of date technology, Hyperloop??