[musicale]

Exactly - fabric seats and carpet are more comfortable and help with noise, but they always get trashed and are eventually removed.

[presentation]

Not here in Japan

[Symbiote]

London also has them.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moquette

[inferiorhuman]

Sure, and Marin (Bay Area) also has fabric seats, but their public transit sees much lower ridership.

It's hard to overstate how vile the old wool seats were on BART. It took the NY Times reporting that the wool covers harbored MRSA and other nasties to prompt the switch to vinyl.

[StrauXX]

Same with Austrian trains.