Heidi Alexander has set out Thameslink train seat upgrade plans to refit more than 60,000 seats on all 115 Thameslink trains with new cushions and backrests, starting in 2027. The work will run for two years and will reach the full fleet, not a single route or depot.
Alexander said: "We'll start getting rid of the dreaded 'ironing board seats' so passengers can enjoy comfier, more pleasant journeys on some of Britain's busiest commuter routes." The scale matters because the change covers every class-700 Thameslink train in service, not a small sample.
Thameslink class-700 fleet
Govia Thameslink Railway said the class-700 Thameslink trains are the ones getting the new cushions and backrests. Those trains were rolled out between 2016 and 2019 after the Department for Transport spent £1.6bn of taxpayers' money for Siemens to build them in 2013.
The original procurement emphasized high capacity, reduced weight, and a 2+2 seat layout to ease flow and provide standing space. That design choice left less room for padded seating, which is why the replacement work now amounts to a comfort upgrade rather than a new seating plan.
Department for Transport procurement
The trains were ordered under Department for Transport guidance that said the new electric fleet must cater for about 1,000 people to board or alight at one time. A Railfuture report in 2014, after viewing a prototype at London's Excel centre, said: "We found the seats very hard and imagine this will soon lead to complaints from passengers, particularly bearing in mind that some journeys on these trains will be up to 130 miles long such as Peterborough or Cambridge or Bedford to Gatwick & Brighton and taking over two hours."
That history is the friction in the story: the new comfort work is being presented alongside public ownership, but the trains were originally procured by the Department for Transport. Graeme Pickering said on X: "Might have been wise not to frame this as 'public ownership fixes private sector mess' when it was the DfT which procured said trains."
Greater Thameslink Railway plans
The seat upgrade sits inside wider improvements planned for the Thameslink network after Greater Thameslink Railway came into public ownership in May 2026. Other changes include an increase in Gatwick Express services from December and a programme to refurbish train toilets and remove graffiti across the fleet.
For passengers, the immediate takeaway is simple: the seat change is scheduled, fleet-wide, and long-range, but it will not arrive before 2027. The unanswered issue is how much the new cushions and backrests will improve comfort compared with the current seats.
