Originally Posted by
Koby
I saw some pictures of the "3 in a row" seating, and it looks scary...
Honestly, I'm not sure if I'm happy with this. I'm not one of their target customers (generally traveling 1st class TGV now).
But look at what happened in the airline industry. When low-cost airlines started (let's say 15 years ago) I could still fly comfortably within Europe on Swissair or Lufthansa. Compare that with the NEK (torture) seating you get on LH these days (even in Business class). I'm afraid that the only way left to travel comfortably in Europe in 15 years from will be by car.
My understanding was that the 3-in-a-row seating is just because it was easiest to convert the former 1st class cars that way, as the gangway was/is not down the centre line of the coach. I don't think there is any difference in terms of space (seat size) between the 1+3 and the 2+2.
Of course, with the random seat allocation, there's a world of difference between being allocated a "solo" seat and a middle-of-the-group-of-three seat. Will be interesting to see how that works in practice.