Yours and Vicbury’s experiences are very concerning.
I suspect the particular HVAC chosen will have been specified by someone in the UK...
Good to hear, we've gotten 2 new 197s enter service recently, better than 0! 125 seems to be going straight South into Cardiff! It isn't staying unfortunately but atleast it goes South quick.
197s being used on Ebbw Vale, Cheltenhams, Maesteg and the Borderlands when these should be solidly 231 and 230 routes is of course stretching the fleet.
The faster you remove the 10 diagrams for Ebbw Vale and Maesteg you'll free up 10 197s, supposing every diagram ran as one, which is really needed, 231s are being delayed thanks to the Valleys anyway. The 197s are meant to be 5 coaches for Manchester soon I believe, but I'm not sure it'll be fully operational until we free up more 197s off these local routes.
Looking through the diagrams there are currently 3 3 car and 7 2 car diagrams on 'non-197' routes, 2 2 cars covering for 230s, 1 3 car on the next Mk4 diagram and the remainder on Cheltenham/Maesteg/Ebbw, there's also another 3 car which does the last Ebbw but off Manchester services so that's not really a diagram saved.
Unfortunately 231s being constantly delayed for the routes they were intended to be on isn't exactly helping! As that would be a major help to the Marches which needs them most. I'd much rather have the needed capacity on the long routes rather than the local ones.
To be honest though until Manchester is cleared for 5s there's not that many ways of getting that capacity into the Marches anyway, there's not nearly enough 2 cars to run everything as 4 car even with the freed up ones.
What's holding up the clearance of 5 car 197s to Manchester? Loco+4+DVT have been going there for years. How far north are 5.197s allowed?
There were some unit issues as well as infrastructure concerns which I believe were all resolved and testing happened so it's just awaiting a proving and sign off run with the relevant bodies was the last I heard.
Just playing catch up on this - anybody know which unit received which name please?
Given that the aircon hasn't, as far as l am aware, been an issue on their sister units in England that is a concern.
Correct me if I'm wrong but Holyhead and Llandudno Junction have had any booked 150 or 153 work for a year but they all still seem to sign them. There's been at least two 150s to Blaenau this year which would be a few crew turns.
Um, yes, there have been issues on the 195/331s.
Blimey I'm no fan of air conditioning systems that feel like a fridge in the summer, but 28° is rather warm! I'd also suggest 21° in the winter is too warm when people are wearing coats.
Wow wow wow, what the actual ?
It takes 1 instance of work every 6 months for drivers to maintain competence. Carmarthen depot is larger than Holyhead and Junction combined, and Cardiff Mainline is a massive depot, so one trip once a week isn't going to do the trick down there.
