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Additional Trains for East Kilbride and Barrhead

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Southsider

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According to the Barrhead News four more Class 156 DMUS are to be allocated to these routes from May. The officials quoted also mention further planned improvements on the routes - electrification?
http://www.barrheadnews.com/news/17...-ticket-for-barrheads-fed-up-rail-passengers/
Scott Prentice, ScotRail’s head of business development, said: “This is a fantastic boost for our customers as the first phase of the larger Scottish Government project to enhance the railway to East Kilbride and Barrhead.

“These routes are showing continual growth and I am delighted that we will be able to make such significant improvements for our customers.”

Bill Reeve, Transport Scotland’s director of rail, added: “We’ve worked closely with ScotRail to secure extended leases of four C156 refurbished trains until the end of the franchise.

“From May, this will enable more four-cars to run on the Barrhead line, allowing more passengers to choose rail travel.

“This is the first step of improvements for this route and is just one example of how we are alleviating over-crowding on our trains.
 
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hexagon789

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According to the Barrhead News four more Class 156 DMUS are to be allocated to these routes from May. The officials quoted also mention further planned improvements on the routes - electrification?

Scott Prentice, ScotRail’s head of business development, said: “This is a fantastic boost for our customers as the first phase of the larger Scottish Government project to enhance the railway to East Kilbride and Barrhead.

“These routes are showing continual growth and I am delighted that we will be able to make such significant improvements for our customers.”

Bill Reeve, Transport Scotland’s director of rail, added: “We’ve worked closely with ScotRail to secure extended leases of four C156 refurbished trains until the end of the franchise.

“From May, this will enable more four-cars to run on the Barrhead line, allowing more passengers to choose rail travel.

“This is the first step of improvements for this route and is just one example of how we are alleviating over-crowding on our trains.

Good news, the extra capacity is definitely needed, particularly on EK services.

I believe electrification of the East Kilbride branch has been touted for at least the last 10 years, quite possibly longer.
 

Starmill

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Bill Reeve, Transport Scotland’s director of rail, added: “We’ve worked closely with ScotRail to secure extended leases of four C156 refurbished trains until the end of the franchise.
Hm. I wasn't aware that any of the class 156s were to go off lease as a result of electrification? Is this, in fact, four 156s that have been displaced by the Turbostars that were going to be transferred to GTR, and these are the leases that have now been agreed to the franchise end? Or am I barking up totally the incorrect tree here?
 

Starmill

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Starmill

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Hm. I wasn't aware that any of the class 156s were to go off lease as a result of electrification? Is this, in fact, four 156s that have been displaced by the Turbostars that were going to be transferred to GTR, and these are the leases that have now been agreed to the franchise end? Or am I barking up totally the incorrect tree here?
Turns out that there are actually 5 3 car units that were leased to GTR. As far as I can see these (170 416-420) are still in regular use at ScotRail and nothing has changed recently?
 

Altnabreac

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Oh I see. Thanks for that. How interesting. I supposed that gives rise to the question... where is the leftover unit? Just off lease until further notice?

Fairly sure the final unit is 156478.
When Franchise was drawn up it was one of the 48 Angel owned 156s at Scotrail
156478 then written off by Angel before being refurbished and leased separately to Scotrail by Brodies in 2016
38 original 158s in Franchise Agreement lease to Scotrail by Angel
5 156s to Northern
4 156s leased to Scotrail in this additional deal

So Scotrail will have 43 156s until the end of the Franchise now. 42 from Angel and 1 from Brodies.
 

sannox

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It's a positive although I feel EK really needs better frequency. Electric trains would work well on that line too.

Also some of the Barrhead trains are notoriously busy. The 2 car at 0756 from Barrhead is a very busy service as it's the last train that comfortably gets you to Glasgow before 9am from the intermediate stops (excluding the ones also served by EK trains).

The 1713 to Girvan is very busy to Barrhead- where about half the train empties! Noticeable the stopper before is used by many passengers to avoid the crush.
 

route101

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I thought this would happen . Hopefully there is something in the pipeline . Increase in frequency maybe 3x hour . Trains are often busy throughout the day now
 

mcmad

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Are there paths into Central to increase to 3 an hour? I thought the additional paths from PCI got used for additional Ayrshire services?
 
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