The Department for Transport has announced the preferred bidder for the new Super Express Trains, part of the Intercity Express Project. These trains will replace diesel HST trains and the electric class 225 trains on the East Coast and Great Western lines. The new trains look smart and will have more seats together with using less energy. They will be either electric, diesel or able to run on electric or their own power source. After the replacement of HST trainsets with Voyager trains on Virgin it is good to see that a high quality train is being developed to replace the HST. Of course to see how comfortable they are to travel on and what the seats are like, we will just need to wait until they are introduced. The HST introduced almost thirty years ago set new standards of passenger comfort. With a very smooth ride, no noisy under floor engines, large picture windows and comfortable seats (now replaced by rather uncomfortable seats) these trains set the standard for years to come and in my oppinion are still the most comfortable trains on the network. Lets hope the new ones can at least match the old, something that new trains seem to struggle with. It will also be interesting to see how much luggage space these new trains have. I like the idea of more seats, but not at the expense of toilets and lugguage space. The HST manages to fit in two luggage vans, two toilets per coach, a restaurant and a buffet together with lots of seats, I'm sure the new train should be able to do just as well. If you would like to see more of these trains and download a rather cool demonstration video of what they might look like, head here.
This week at work I received these photos from Australia. The poor Koala bear was suffering from the extreme heat and headed down to the road to meet some cyclists and ask for a drink which was gladly supplied. It really made me think about how nice it is for animals and humans to get along well together. Its the way it was meant to be and there is something inside us all that makes us really happy to see something like this happen. I also wanted to share it because Koala's are probably the cutest animal around. Enjoy!
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