A Splendid morning behind 68027 

I love these trainsets. Currenly the most comfortable in Britain both in first class and standard class compared to almost all other trains (except class 745 which is equally comfortable). These trainsets have been very smartly planned. Now that the government has approved electrification of the transpennine mainline these trains can REMAIN in service because the locomotive can easily be replaced by class 88 which is the electric sister of class 68 with all the interior systems being identical!!! TPE did a great job here (and I don't say that easily).

I like these trains. I hope we will get these in Northern Ireland in the future.

The quality of a passenger train cannot be judged on the first class interior. That is always comfortable enough. The real question is: Is the standard class comfortable or not. In midst of all the standard class diappointments of the last years (including the Azuma!!) this is really a positive example. Modern, clean, really spacious and still economically reasonable. This is a perfect standard class that I like to travel on. Congrats to the operator. Great job!! One question remains: What will that carpet look like after 1 or 2 years of daily service??? Linolium or so would perhaps have been more practical. But that's a minor detail.

Fantastic video, and a great record of the first day.

Excellent video! I notice that - finally in the UK - the unique European Vehicle Numbers have been applied, even though they have not been spaced and hyphenated properly!

Has anyone else experienced this? I travel regularly to Manchester on this line and have found that at least one of these new 1st class coaches shakes so badly - I initially thought we had a bearing failure. Having experienced this again yesterday, I can only conclude that we're stuck with it. The shaking is so bad along certain sections that its impossible to write, type or even drink a coffee!

You would think the EVN would have some sort of punctuation or spaces in it to make it slightly easier to parse visually. 96.70.0011.509.7 or 96 70 0011 509 7 edit: reading the spec for EVNs, the digits 0011509 can be emboldened or underlined, but they chose not to.

So most of the seats in standard class are in bays with tables then? Well that's welcome. (Even if they don't necessarily line up with windows.)

Beautiful train but I did notice that the seats don't line up with the windows so some seats unfortunately do not have much of a view outside. Poor design.