Readers may recall Matthew Parris’s Spectator article from August last year, ‘Who’s to blame for my terrible journey?’ From 2016 onwards, many rail operating companies, including Thameslink and GWR, began introducing new carriages with ‘ironing board’ seat designs. ‘My buttocks ache at the very recollection,’ Matthew complained. He demanded to know who was responsible and offered £200 to any reader who could produce the relevant names.
In accordance with Matthew’s challenge, I sent a Freedom of Information request to the Department for Transport (DfT). As requests are often denied for being too broad in scope, I focused on Thameslink’s Class 700 carriage seats, asking for the names of the individuals involved in agreeing this particular design. The department’s response was entirely expected:
So I don’t bag the £200. But I did get the names of the organisations involved, along with the reasons the seats turned out the way they did.
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