The new Mariyung fleet of intercity trains for New South Wales, Australia, will operate between Sydney and the Central Coast and Newcastle, the Blue Mountains, and the South Coast.
These electric trains are being lauded for their accessibility with dedicated space for wheelchairs and accessible toilets, and for their spaciousness with wide two-by-two seating for extra room. In addition, they are to have dedicated spaces for luggage, prams and bicycles.
One immediate thing that came as a surprise looking at the demonstration vehicle is that neither the downstairs nor the upstairs sections of the carriage had any overhead luggage space. Is this a loading gauge issue? Parts of the Blue Mountains route they serve had to be modified to accommodate the new, wider trains.
In terms of general luggage storage, although there was no example provided on the demonstration section here at InnoTrans, the image film accompanying the display showed luggage racks at the end of carriages in the downstairs section. There had been some initial internal staff discussion whether this train would feature dedicated luggage carriages where passenger have to check their luggage as with Amtrak trains.
Furthermore, the claims of spaciousness did also not meet initial impressions. A lot of the seats were positioned in tight, cramped locations next to the stairs.
The downstairs single seats also had a raised component on the floor on one side, making it impossible to place both feet on the ground normally. Combined with the fact that the two facing seats are less than 40cm apart, it’s cramped indeed.
There will be bicycle racks on this train, however, they seem to be of the upright variety that are cumbersome and quite inaccessible to many people.
In terms of accessibility, double-decker trains offer overall reduced accessibility in exchange for increased capacity.
These double-deck trains are to enter passenger service by the end of 2024.
