Information about seating on trains?

tee, Seating on trains in Europe tends to vary a bit between countries, and whether the seats are in the first class or second class section. Could you elaborate on your concerns? One of the absolutely BEST places for checking details on all trains in Europe is This Website. It's VERY extensive, and will probably answer all your questions. I've never seen any information on seat width or pitch on trains. I don't think this is designated the same way as airline seating. Happy travels!

This probably doesn't answer your question, but from what I have seen on Deutsch Bahn ICE trains, the seats are the same size between 1st and 2nd classes. The extra cost of 1st class gives you more room between seats.

I don't think that information is collected anywhere. And would be hard to use, because you've not only had to know the class of the train (high speed, intercity, regional), but also its precise technical model and generation/configuration for that. Take for example the ICE lines of the Bahn, which are all the same as far as pricing, booking and so forth are concerned. But technically the rolling stock consists of at least five types of railcars in a lot of configurations.
If you start to look at other intercity lines and especially regional lines (where the rolling stock has a longer shelf life), you'll get dozens, if not hundreds, of different railcar models and configurations. In many ICE models (redesigned 1st and 3rd model) the seats in 1st class are 500mm wide and have a pitch of 1010mm, the seats in 2nd class are 465mm wide and have a pitch of 920mm.

tee, you haven't given any hint of which routes you are speaking about, or any idea of which countries. In the UK, for example, there must be at least 30 or 40 different types of train car, and within those there are several variants. Many types have no First Class, only Standard. Even for the same traction, different companies have implemented different layouts. It would be helpful if you provided a bit more detail. I work in the industry and have never seen any internal simplifiers such as you are looking for, and certainly no public ones.

According to this Bahn page, 1st class seats, at least in Germany, are wider and have more leg room. In 2nd class, the Großraum (open coach) seating is four across, with a center aisle. 1st class has an offset aisle with 2 seats on one side, 1 seat on the other side. However, it's nowhere near the difference between 1st class and Economy on an aircraft. The seats in second class are wide enough, with plenty of leg room. I stopped riding in 1st class over 20 years ago, because I couldn't find a difference that justified the 50% higher price.

The best source of train seating - or most other train questions - I've ever seen is The Man in Seat 61. Give it a try. http://www.seat61.com/

I've snooped around lots of websites with photos of train cars, seats, etc., (I'm kind of a train junkie!) but I've never seen the stats you're searching for, either. If you're looking for roomy seats, I can tell you that many seats will have movable armrests that you can move to a near-vertical position, just like some airline seats. You can sometimes tell this from a photo (see the 'Italy' pages of the 'Man in Seat 61' links above for great photos)...As in 1st-class seats on airplanes, 1st-class train seats may have fixed armrests so that although the seats themselves are wider your actual space may have been greater in a 2nd-class seat with the armrests up. Pitch reminds me of exit-row seating on an airplane, if that helps any.

In trains with compartments vs row seats, there is a seat-size difference between 1st and 2nd classes. In the first class compartments, there are 6 seats (3 and 3 facing each other). In 2nd class there are 8 seats. I have seen this configuration in Italy not many years ago. I had to move once when a large man sat across from me and sprawled his legs so they took up all the floor room. These compartments can be make up into sleeping compartments when necessary. However, not if the full complement of 6 or 8 people occupy them.

Hi All Thanks for all the info. My primary concern is seat width and legroom for large passengers. We are planning a trip with a large group (both in number of people and size of some of the inividuals.) So, I'm trying to find info in order to plan our route according to the most comfortable of options. Thanks again, tee

Most trains will have 1+2 seat rows for 1st class and 2+2 for 2nd class. Some commuter trains will have 2+2 and 2+3 respectively.

I was on the TGV Bordeaux-Paris last May and I did not see any see width difference between second and first class, which is important to me. Having said that, it can be a crap shoot, depending on the actual train running that route that day... especially when traveling between smaller towns. In general though, I have found second second-class seats to be a lot roomier (width and pitch) than airplane seats. Be aware: the 4 seats config (that have 2+2 facing each other) may seem to offer more room, but often sometimes have a fixed table - making it much harder to get in & out if a person is big in the stomach. If not, then they may give you some flexibility for switching people around their seats.

Hi Everyone Thanks for the thoughtful responses. The seat61.com website does not have what I'm looking for. I even emailed "the man" himself but he did not have the info. Here is an example of what I'm looking for from the Eurostar website. http://www.eurostar.com/UK/uk/leisure/travel_information/on_board/seating_plan.jsp Thanks again! tee

Wait, hang on...As I said in your other thread on this subject, a train is a train is a train. They are the same width, in order not to bash into each other when they pass on the tracks ;-) Therefore, 1st-class seats (aka, '3-across') will be basically the same whether they're EuroStar, TGV, Thalys, etc. The same goes for 2nd-class seats (aka, '4-across'). We're talking about possibly 1"-2" difference in width, max, if that much, between trains. That depends on the width of armrests, distance away from the wall, etc. Those EuroStar armrests vary in width from 1" in 2nd class to 6" in 1st class (both armrests combined). Of course, one strategy is to buy the single-width seats in 1st-class cars, especially if you see from photos that the aisle-side armrest can be raised. A great point was brought up about seats with tables - I recommend that you avoid those like the plague! Been there, done that. So, basically, your EuroStar seating info should (and will probably have to) serve as your model for the other trains.

thanks!