In honesty it's not the looks I was directly referring to. In the past thirty years British trains seem to be really beautiful ( Class 800 ) or really ugly (Class 460).
That’s why I prefer design from the 80’s to early 2000s. It wasn’t so much sophisticated so they made simple but modern looking design.
With 390s it's more down to the structure of the Pendolino - there are ribs running above and below the windows which makes the structure light for it's strength. It's nothing to do with Branson wanting plane sized windows because Voyagers have huge windows. With the new tube stock the gaps between windows house ducting for the Air-con
Post Steam era my golden age is the 70s to the early 90s, which incorporates lovely designs such as the HSTs and 225s, plus others. Yes, the said 'event' has improved many things and I wouldn't say what we had before was better overall but when when talking about the rolling stock it was a lot less hit and miss. Anyway this is off topic too far now so I'll stop there (I also want a job to go back to as well!).
Can't believe I forgot about this one. It's like a the 700s hideous mutated brother nobody wants to talk about...
Not sure if this one been posted yet also watch now when all the scottish fan boys come crying in here lol
Give it a yellow front and it would be a whole lot better. It is the yellow front which makes me find the 700 to be on the more attractive end of the scale.
Okay so something like this, there's only so much I could do with it really. Got rid of the divots in the face for a start. Nahhh, 380s all the way!
That has made it look more than reasonable, still not quite as good as the 700 but much better than a lot of things on this thread.
i found something... British rail class 151. 2 built, 2 scrapped. luckily they cant hurt anyone anymore
True, windows are too big, looks like a monorail. Now here's another one from Japan, the Kiha 81. Looks a bit like an art deco rabbit that fancied becoming a van/dmu... Still not as ugly as the Kiha 183 though.
It was in a run off with the 150, but was deemed to radical by the relatively conservative BR. The Front end does scream 80s. But the sides look a mess with that oversized guttering. When Met-Cam went for the 156 contract they raided the class 150 parts bin to use commonality as a selling point. The Proposed 157 does look a bit 151 ish....
How are we 5 pages in & no one has mentioned that Shays have their boilers offset to one side... Just look at this thing!
Gets every railroader's OCD... The biggest surprise for me is that not a single one tipped over on its side - ever in the history of railroading!
Now that I have a better angle... it doesn't look that bad! Maybe the angle wasn't the issue then! However, having been disgusted by the Land Rover Discovery, I can understand why you find it distasteful.
Yes, pretty, isn’t she? Seriously, I like no-nonsense industrial design and that’s exactly what the Shays are
I mean, they are a beautiful piece of machinery that did their jobs, and aren't really bad looking. Honestly, I don't think there is a bad looking geared loco of the 3 main types (Shay, Climax, and Heisler)
Yeah I don't know if the Shays counts really, it's cobbled together elements to do a heavy job, not ugly nor a beaut, just industrial function. I think that comes across in most steam locos.
It's also pointless. It travels a distance of 0.8 miles in a matter of 2 minutes, and definitely deserves to be on this list.
You said pointless ? Here’s a better one, it’s 0.81 miles long and it has 3 coaches, never full of course.
Ugly design, ugly livery, even the classification gets on my nerves! Transport for Wales livery on this thing is bad as well!
No way! That's on my attractive list. Now the 319, that's a big pile of meh, the Northern Electrics livery works for it cause it's hiding the annoyingly mismatched front windows in dark blue. A bit like how certain units look weird without black borders around the windows.
I completely agree! Now I'm a bit worried cause scotrail is testing some class 769's wich are basically the same as 319's. I really don't want those running up here. Ughhhhh. Can you imagine one of those on the west highland line. It sends shivers down my spine.
Duckcela... Or, the equally uninspiring Dutch Railways Fyra. Even the train tried to shed its own ugliness whlist moving. So bad bits kept falling off of it when in service. .
