Recent content by craigybagel

I suspect it's more for unit balancing than anything else. The Crewe & Shrewsbury crews that work it North of Cardiff get plenty of 158 work on Birmingham services so don't need it. It might be of benefit for the Welsh based crew who bring it into Cardiff but then again 1 job on 1 day a week...

Indeed - it's not like running the trains back separately doesn't cause headaches in its own right, even before you look at the inefficiencies of it all!

These are all booked 197 from the June TT, including the set that stables overnight at Piccadilly on a Saturday into Sunday. This is booked for a single 158 from June, but from experience that's normally more than enough capacity for it

To be fair, given how much Crewe depot has expanded over the last few years there isn't much space to cut back on route retention any more for either Styal or Warrington with so many drivers to keep competent.

Believed to be a door fault on the rake, rather than an issue with the loco. 197111.

To be fair, that's my fault. When I first put the details for Ipswich in I wasn't sure if they only signed to International or all the way to Town - and at the time they signed 321s so it was less obvious what the answer was. From my base far away from East Anglia on the other side of the...

I've replied on the 197 thread about their performance. All I'll add here for the 175 speculation thread is that if they do end up at GWR, I have no doubt they'll be able to match 158 timings quite easily, even in places like Devon & Cornwall where the extra 10mph top speed wont be of much use.

From the 175 speculation thread, figured it was more appropriate to reply here It's been a lot of fun with the 197s reaching the kind of speeds I never would have thought possible going uphill. They're quick to accelerate in general, but it's especially noticeable on hill climbs how much better...

All units have their good and bad moments but the 175s seemed to be more susceptible to it. That said, it might be because we spent so much time on them compared to the rest of the fleet it was easier to notice differences like that. 158s can be temperamental all year long - amount other...

The 3 cars were noticeably quicker to accelerate than the 2 cars, that's true. But even a 2 car was still quicker than any other unit in the TfW fleet at the time. The 175s don't perform as well in summer either to be fair, and they especially struggle in late spring with pollen clogging the...

Mechanically, they cope absolutely fine. Despite being geared for 100mph, they accelerate better than any sprinter, and the brakes are great. Never known any issues with stop start work on them. They do struggle on dwell time however with single leaf doors at each end of the carriage, and a...

It's a Sunday - there's always booked to be more Sprinters out on the Marches. It was the same in 175 days. 1714306173 It's been running round on 2 engines for several days - might be related to that?

So long as the proving runs don't flag any issues. No need for extra crew training or anything like that. Obviously if they do have problems, that might take time to rectify, plus as others have said you also need to take into account the availability of units

True, but in theory that should be only temporary. TfW haven't given up on the 230s yet. And one of those units is cancelled out already by the Crewe - Shrewsbury local staying as 153s instead of a 197.

And the first bit of speed increases have already gone live. The Proposed timetable sees a more regular stopping pattern for the MKIV services (Crewe - Shrewsbury - Ludlow then all stops except Pontypool) for most services, which hopefully when combined with the other planned speed increases...