Somewhere amid the strikes, cancellations and fury over Southern rail owners’ staggering profits, a new kind of train slipped quietly onto the lines in the south-east of England this summer.

It has been talked up as the “future of commuting”; a way of easing the overcrowding woes of all those unhappy souls crammed into London-bound carriages each day. But this future still involves the struggle to find a seat – let alone a table.

Theatre manager Martin, 42, travels on the new Thameslink train from Brighton to London Blackfriars at rush hour each morning.

“The new train feels quite odd because it’s one long tube-type carriage,” he says. “If I do get a seat, the lack of tables makes trying to get any work done on your laptop really awkward and difficult. And if I don’t get a seat and I’m forced to stand, it’s not any more comfortable than standing on the old train – you’re still jiggling around the doorway for an hour and 20 minutes.

“I can remember when the old train had a buffet cart about a decade ago,” he adds. “It feels like they’ve shaved off all convenience since then.”

You can understand the frustration if people are forced onto a mobile sardine tin for over an hour to get to work Simon Smiler

Many of Britain’s long-suffering commuters have become familiar with huddling in squashed doorways. But does Thameslink’s new metro-style train, with extra standing space formally agreed with the manufacturer, signal a national trend towards a new kind of standard? If we are now expected to do without a seat or the luxury of being able to work on trains, is the comfort of the commuter being downgraded – despite billions being invested in new train stock?

“It’s a sign of the times,” says British transport blogger Simon Smiler. “It’s a trend in a lot of cities where they’re trying to make sure a large number of people can travel quickly and easily through the city, as well as in and out of the city.

“Connecting up suburban trains into your transit system isn’t easy,” he adds. “But the metro-style trains aren’t really suitable for long journeys. People still like a seat and somewhere to put their coffee. So you can understand the frustration if people are forced onto a mobile sardine tin for over an hour to get to work on time.”

The new Class 700 train on the Brighton to London route

The fleet of Class 700 Thameslink trains, commissioned at the cost of £1.6bn and now running through London on the Brighton to Bedford route, closely resemble the short-hop trains typical of urban transit systems. They have fewer seats than conventional suburban commuter trains, wider doors, wider aisles – and a lot more space for standing passengers.

In addition, all the tables have been removed from standard-class carriages, making working difficult for many passengers on journeys in and out of London that can run close to two hours.

Chris Page, a director at the campaign group Railfuture, points out that whereas the previous incarnation of Thameslink trains had 798 seats, the replacement class has only 666 seats.

Operator Govia Thameslink Railway says there will be an overall increase in seat numbers because of the increased frequency in trains as more rolling stock is added over the next two years.

“You don’t want standing to become a long-term solution to capacity problems,” says Page. “The risk is that it will become the norm for these longer journeys. If you’re commuting for over an hour and you’re paying a lot, it’s not unreasonable to expect a seat and a table.”

Commuters and campaign groups are worried Govia’s new class of high-capacity, metro-style trains is helping normalise standing on long rail journeys.

Between now and the end of 2018, 115 of the German-built trains will be introduced on Govia’s Thameslink and Northern services on routes as far out of London as Cambridge and Peterborough, as well as Brighton and Bedford – journeys that typically take well over an hour.

It follows London to Essex operator c2c introducing its own metro service last year, refurbishing 20% of its trains by stripping out seats, creating more standing space and introducing overhead hand straps to help pack in 150 extra passengers on rush hour services.

Commuters coming into Birmingham, the UK’s second biggest metropolitan area, are also likely to experience the subtle shift towards a metro-style, cattle-class journey soon.

A commuter on a delayed train from London in 1976. Photograph: Barry Lewis/Corbis/Getty

A proposal to provide more standing space was included in the Department for Transport’s (DfT) consultation over the West Midlands rail franchise, serving commuter routes into the city. Rail firms invited to bid to take over the London Midland line from October 2017 were asked to consider “fewer seats but more standing space and wider aisles” on the shorter distance services.

Other growing cities around the world face the same question: how do you balance the needs of commuters making long journeys to and from the city, with the need to deliver more frequent, “turn up and go” stopping services inside city boundaries?

Toronto’s GO commuter system has seen significant overcrowding in recent years, with many travellers in the Greater Toronto area forced to stand on 30-minute journeys downtown. The GO operator’s goal is to provide seats for 80% of its peak time passengers, but it achieved only 66% at the most recent count.

Melbourne’s Metro commuter network has addressed rising numbers by ripping out seats on its oldest fleet to create more standing space, leaving close to half of passengers standing when trains are at peak capacity. And the Bay Area Rapid Transit system, serving San Francisco and Oakland commuters on the US west coast, has also reduced seating and added overhead hand straps.

So how long is it reasonable to ask passengers to stand? Many European countries such France, Italy and Spain don’t have to regulate for standing times on longer distance journeys because those trains don’t cater for unreserved passengers, so everyone has a ticket and a seat.

In the UK, the closest thing to regulating standing times is a vague principle that states it is acceptable to stand for up to 20 minutes. The DfT uses this 20-minute principle – known as the passengers in excess of capacity (PiXC) measure – as the basis of monitoring levels of overcrowding. But it doesn’t mean any laws are being broken when your knees ache after an hour spent clutching a handrail.

Martin, the daily Brighton to London commuter, says he would settle for standing for 30 minutes. “Half an hour seems like it would okay. But on a bad day, with delays, I can be standing for more than 90 minutes. You can joke about it being first world problems, but it does become quite punishing.”

Still, there might be a chink of light at the end of the Thameslink tunnel. A spokesman for Govia told the Guardian talks with the DfT to retrofit seat tables into the Class 700 trains are at an “advanced stage”.

A tiny luxury reclaimed, perhaps. A small plastic table might not make standing any easier, but it should make those wonderful mornings you find an empty seat all the more precious.

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