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Northern Pacer Withdrawals - Info?

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Bertie the bus

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Well considering NOT A SINGLE Class 195 or Class 769 has entered service yet and the Northern fleet has 100 or so Pacers in it and with no imminent sign of any entry into traffic there will certainly be Pacers in service in 2020, how many we don't know!! Certainly some.
Many of us had come to that conclusion a while back. The only question that remains is when will Northern publically admit it? My guess is late November / early December.
 
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Jozhua

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Many of us had come to that conclusion a while back. The only question that remains is when will Northern publically admit it? My guess is late November / early December.

My guess is 2nd of January 2020, 1st of January, reduced services will allow them to hide it somewhat ;)
 

xotGD

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I am now confident that this Northern Pacer withdrawal thread will reach 1000 posts before we see the first withdrawal.

On some lines the new timetable has actually seen an upsurge in Pacer operations. Plus the sight of 5-car formations around Leeds.
 

ed1971

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Since the May timetable change with the Bolton line getting a full electric service, how many DMUs has this freed up?
 

anamyd

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I'm guessing we still haven't seen any Pacer withdrawals at all yet?
no, but Northern are now saying the first one will be withdrawn "in the summer" which is also when their first Civities (the ones that have been made safe) will be entering service. "Village halls" and "cafés" here we come!
 

ic31420

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I imagine the first northern withdrawn pacers will be heading straight to Wales won't they?

And so won't be withdrawn at all, at least not in the old sense of the word.
 

anamyd

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I imagine the first northern withdrawn pacers will be heading straight to Wales won't they?

And so won't be withdrawn at all, at least not in the old sense of the word.
TfW will only be acquiring 8 142s I think it is. This is only for less than 6 months (until January 2020) to try and speed up their 150/2 and to a lesser extent 158 / start their 153 PRM modifications, then all what will be 38 TfW Pacers will come off National Rail entirely. Northern have 94 more Pacers that will start to come off National Rail entirely this summer. That leaves GWR's little allocation of 8 143s which I'm guessing will come off National Rail entirely by January 2020.
 

WYSH

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As this year continues, how long do we think it is now until northern admit that the pacer withdrawal deadline will be missed, given than still no 195/331 have entered public service?
 

Killingworth

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Pacers will be thrashed until 31st December to cover for refurbishing work and new arrivals. It will be very difficult to continue using them in regular service beyond that date due to political pressure.

However, I for one would rather a Pacer turned up than no train at all. And if operating them into 2020 is the only way stock can be released to provide a 4 car 150 to Wigan at peak times (a lasting memory is from Platform 14 of a billed 4 coach train arriving 20 minutes late with 2 and passengers unable to get aboard) I'd be satisfied.

There is no reason, other than a rule we've created for ourselves, to impose a prohibition from an arbitrary day.

That said, I have a feeling that even when all the new and refurbished stock is available we'll still have capacity issues. New stock with teething problems. Old stock with age related troubles.
 

SC43090

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Apologises if in wrong place..... I understand that the 331 EMU's will enter traffic on Monday 1st July 2019 on Doncaster Leeds Doncaster services.... The only pacer turn it will replace is the 0558 Doncaster Leeds which is allocated a pacer unit then normally goes onto the Leeds Lancaster service....
 

Chris217

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Political pressure?

Says everything doesn't it!

We are the dictated!
We must listen to the dictators who will
run our railways as they like it to be even though they don't use trains themselves!
 

davart

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I think withdrawing stock that is useable is a bad idea.

It's good that things are being made accessible of course. A better solution would be to replace units as they become worn out and keep any that are still reliable.

Regarding accessibility, on routes that have several trains per hour, it wouldn't really be a problem to run one non-adapted train as long as it was denoted as such e.g. legacy stock or suchlike.

I'm sure many would disagree and no doubt many of the pacers are knackered, however, if they're still needed to cover for capacity, then why not?
 

js1000

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There is no reason, other than a rule we've created for ourselves, to impose a prohibition from an arbitrary day.
Couldn't disagree more. It's not an 'arbitrary day' - when you don't have deadlines, people and companies tend to abuse them and try to kick them into the long grass. Just look at Brexit.

It's easy to see the following happen:
December 2019, DfT: "We have agreed to delay retiring Pacer trains to ensure sufficient capacity."
Early 2020, TOCs: "There is no deadline - only an arbitrary date. We'll continue operating Pacers as we see fit."

Also, you have a problem of the government potentially exposing themselves to a lawsuit from accessibility campaign groups. As well as the bad PR that would be associated with operating dilapidated trains past their sell by date.
 

158756

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Couldn't disagree more. It's not an 'arbitrary day' - when you don't have deadlines, people and companies tend to abuse them and try to kick them into the long grass. Just look at Brexit.

It's easy to see the following happen:
December 2019, DfT: "We have agreed to delay retiring Pacer trains to ensure sufficient capacity."
Early 2020, TOCs: "There is no deadline - only an arbitrary date. We'll continue operating Pacers as we see fit."

Also, you have a problem of the government potentially exposing themselves to a lawsuit from accessibility campaign groups. As well as the bad PR that would be associated with operating dilapidated trains past their sell by date.

There's been no rush to meet the deadline as it is - only in the last couple of years have refurbishment programs started on large numbers of sprinters, and there was never much desire to update the pacers. A number of TOCs and leading companies probably are still hoping for an extension. Much more profitable than using the last twenty years to move to a more accessible fleet. If the DfT hadn't set an end date non-compliant trains would be running for at least another decade.
 

Paul_10

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Pacers will be thrashed until 31st December to cover for refurbishing work and new arrivals. It will be very difficult to continue using them in regular service beyond that date due to political pressure.

However, I for one would rather a Pacer turned up than no train at all. And if operating them into 2020 is the only way stock can be released to provide a 4 car 150 to Wigan at peak times (a lasting memory is from Platform 14 of a billed 4 coach train arriving 20 minutes late with 2 and passengers unable to get aboard) I'd be satisfied.

There is no reason, other than a rule we've created for ourselves, to impose a prohibition from an arbitrary day.

That said, I have a feeling that even when all the new and refurbished stock is available we'll still have capacity issues. New stock with teething problems. Old stock with age related troubles.

I think that is how I see it really, as we all know train users would rather travel by train than by a replacement coach so if that means keeping the pacers for longer then so be it. I think there would be understandable anger if some smaller lines had little to no service at all just because of an deadline and that is what I'm fearing of for next year really. Remember also, Northern have got 20 or so class 153s to withdraw at the end of the year albeit they could be coupled up to a compliant unit but if the lease runs out and it does not get renewed then they can't use them in service.

There was a reason why the plan was for an phased withdrawal of the fleet and the longer it goes on then it becomes even less practical to withdraw a huge handful of trains all in one go. I mean I know this is the railway but even by the railway standards it would be madness to withdraw over 100 trains within aa short time frame and expect it to run smoothly.

Also we got TFW and GWR pacers still yet to go although at least in the latter, they can run them right to near the end of the year and as long they got enough stock to replace them then there should not be a problem really.

And of course there's the PRM issue where it looks likely not all units will be modified by this date so what will happen to the units which are not done? That said, the process could easily be speeded up in the near future so we see what the situation on that is by November time.
 

krus_aragon

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There's been no rush to meet the deadline as it is - only in the last couple of years have refurbishment programs started on large numbers of sprinters, and there was never much desire to update the pacers. A number of TOCs and leading companies probably are still hoping for an extension. Much more profitable than using the last twenty years to move to a more accessible fleet. If the DfT hadn't set an end date non-compliant trains would be running for at least another decade.
From the ROSCOs' point of view, many of them have been keen to showcase PRM solutions for their stock, see the 144e trial unit for example. The issue has been that everybody (ROSCO, TOC, DfT, etc.) expects someone else to pay for the work.
 

absolutelymilk

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If the TOC were allowed to keep running the Pacers, but had to fund free taxi travel for any disabled passengers who would have to travel on one, it would be a big incentive to get them replaced quickly!
 

jayah

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Yes.That’s the state of the seating in most of the even refurbished units I travel to Manchester on. Disgusting.

I don’t understand why the interiors look so dirty. It seems to have got worse lately. It’s as if cleaning only involves removing rubbish now.

Are they familiar with upholstery cleaning?
 

Wolfie

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I noticed on a news report there was a class 150 parked in the York Bay platform , where normally the horrific pile of scrap on wheels ( Pacer ) usually stops .
So at a guess that was Northern's idea of an upgrade.
The only way to get rid of pacers is to send a load to Southwest Railways territory, swap our pacers for their class 158/9 and see how long ' Southern ' users accept a glorified frieght wagon based on technology that was last in common use before the birth of the Queen .
Them and upto the class 150 are an utter insult given the cost of tickets .

Not to mention to get from my local station to Doncaster is 45 mins, or 15 by car !.
They may well have saved branch lines years ago , but they are boyind redemption now .
And the lunacy continues by taking 40 odd year old tube stock and turning those into the next pacer !. Only in the UK...
I see. Firstly new trains are on order for Northern but are delayed due to problems beyond DfT's control. Secondly the genius solution in your rant is to spend a fortune sending poorly maintained time-expired stock down South from an economic basket case franchise that fails completely to look after its assets to the biggest paying franchise into DfT coffers and taking that franchise's well-maintained stock as a replacement. I'm sure those down South who pay through the nose twice (in higher fares and in taxes used to subsidise Northern) might have a view on that (probably involving closing Northern down) ..
 

43096

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There's been no rush to meet the deadline as it is - only in the last couple of years have refurbishment programs started on large numbers of sprinters, and there was never much desire to update the pacers. A number of TOCs and leading companies probably are still hoping for an extension. Much more profitable than using the last twenty years to move to a more accessible fleet. If the DfT hadn't set an end date non-compliant trains would be running for at least another decade.
The usual response on PRM... Seems too many on here have spent the last twenty years ignoring the reality of how the railway works. All roads lead back to the DfT and its insistence on signing off every change to rolling stock fleets.
 
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Bikeman78

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Couldn't disagree more. It's not an 'arbitrary day' - when you don't have deadlines, people and companies tend to abuse them and try to kick them into the long grass. Just look at Brexit.

It's easy to see the following happen:
December 2019, DfT: "We have agreed to delay retiring Pacer trains to ensure sufficient capacity."
Early 2020, TOCs: "There is no deadline - only an arbitrary date. We'll continue operating Pacers as we see fit."

Also, you have a problem of the government potentially exposing themselves to a lawsuit from accessibility campaign groups. As well as the bad PR that would be associated with operating dilapidated trains past their sell by date.
The point is that we've now reached a situation where, come early next year, it will be non compliant trains or no train at all on some routes. This helps no one, disabled or not. Northern has 101 non compliant Pacers. So they'll need to withdraw them at a rate of nearly four per week if they start now. Elsewhere, AGA still seem to believe that they will have 27 compliant 317s by the end of the year. The first unit has been at Kilmarnock for eight months. Are they seriously suggesting the rest can be done at the rate of one per week?

It should be fairly straight forward to limit unmodified units to peak times or running in pairs with modified units. That way everyone can travel on every route. In any case, thousands of disabled people already travel on the network. Even when the fleet is all done, there will still be lots of people that won't have the confidence to travel alone. My mum being one example. No way would she travel alone but she will with a friend ar relative. She's perfectly capable of using a small toilet so PRM mods are irrelevant to her. One thing she does struggle with is sudden or loud noises. So the piercing noise when the doors release, e.g. on a 175, would not be popular. I think the loud bang from the doors of 150s, 317, 319 etc. when another train passes would also cause a problem.
 
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Grannyjoans

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319 Flex isn't happening any more, wasn't this one of the main components that was to allow a full 142 withdrawal ?
 

ed1971

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The point is that we've now reached a situation where, come early next year, it will be non compliant trains or no train at all on some routes. This helps no one, disabled or not. Northern has 101 non compliant Pacers. So they'll need to withdraw them at a rate of nearly four per week if they start now. Elsewhere, AGA still seem to believe that they will have 27 compliant 317s by the end of the year. The first unit has been at Kilmarnock for eight months. Are they seriously suggesting the rest can be done at the rate of one per week?

It should be fairly straight forward to limit unmodified units to peak times or running in pairs with modified units. That way everyone can travel on every route. In any case, thousand of disabled people already travel on the network. Even when the fleet is all done, there will still be lots of people that won't have the confidence to travel alone. My mum being one example. No way would she travel alone but she will with a friend ar relative. She's perfectly capable of using a small toilet so PRM mods are irrelevant to her. One thing she does struggle with is sudden or loud noises. So the piercing noise when the doors release, e.g. on a 175, would not be popular. I think the loud bang from the doors of 150s, 317, 319 etc. when another train passes would also cause a problem.

My 80 year old mum is in the same position as yours. The automated PRM announcements really drive her up the wall and stop her relaxing on a journey. She struggles boarding 150s, 319s and 156s at certain stations because of the platform gap. Ironically it is more of a struggle for a wheelchair user to board a 156 because of the narrow doorways, yet these can stay in service post 1 Jan 2020. After the 1 Jan 2020 PRM deadline it would be a farce if rail replacement buses with no toilets onboard had to cover for Pacers withdrawn because of a lack of PRM toilets!
 
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SC43090

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If it comes to it were possible Northern could use those Crossrail units that are now been stored LOL LOL

SC 43090
 
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