Re: Hitachis - was Vinyl seats in Tangara carriage

[Michael Kurkowski <mk@netstra.com.au>]

Hi,

There is one Hitachi car in current service that still has the front 
communication door. The car being 1999T, a former D car. 

Do the doors still exist behind the welded panels on the front of 
most/all/some hitachi cars? 

How much work would be required to allow a D car to lead again? i.e. when 
the guts were removed from the cabs, was the wiring removed also, or just 
the 'controls'? 

For preservation sake, it would be interesting to see, after the Hitachi's 
are taken out of service, for 1M-901T-902T-2M-301D-3M remarshalled into a 
working set. I believe all the above cars are still in working service, 
(301D is now 2012T, and contains the notable pointed edges on the fluting 
at each end).

I won't be too sorry to see them go out of regular commuter service, they 
are old, clunky, cold in winter, boiling in summer and possibly have the 
most uncomfortable seats of any train i've been on in Australia (with the 
exception of the hunch-back headrests in the airconditioned BE cars). I 
would however be sorry to not see at least one complete original set 
restored/kept.

The Hitachis's imho, looked the nicest without the stripes on the front. 
Two weeks ago i did see one pulling into Flinders Street without the 
stripes on the front but i didnt get the number, and havent seen it since 
:( It was running on a Bayside line.

Regards
Michael


Richo said in message <38126335@dnews.tpgi.com.au>, I therefore quote:

>I hated the old hitachi seats - they were a work of modern art and you
>really felt you were living in the seventies - but were really
>uncomfortable. They were the first of the seat panels I remember seeing
>thrown along the line - does anyone recall whether it was easy to
>dislodge them? Also they used to have DT hitachis, 2 car sets and doors
>in the driver compartments. This is the time when I would say Melbourne
>practice was closest to Sydney - maybe that is why they changed. The
>facial surgery on the hitachis didn't really work - they never looked as
>good afterwards. But what the heck, they're only trains.