Northern Class 195: Construction/Introduction Updates

[anamyd]

It sucks really well presumably, if that image is anything to go by.

oh I've just seen that, wow very sucky!

 

[Bantamzen]

Just had a chat with a Lime Street guard.
He says give me a Pacer any day.
There is too much that can go wrong on the 195s. The thing is run by computer he says,and computers can go wrong.
He went on to say,Pacers always get bad press but I have worked on them for many years with very little fault.
Although the 195s look smart he admitted.
They are besieged with niggles as they have been rushed into service!!!!
Not my words lol.
But I chuckled at his last statement

I wonder if said guard realises how much of our lives are run by computers these days? As for being rushed into service, well it may be the case but a glance over at the Pacer Withdrawal thread will explain why there is a growing urgency to get them into service, because use of Pacers into 2020 is likely to be a political and legal hot potato.

 

[Mountain Man]

Genuine question, but have you been on the "white" 170s yet? (I know that these are generally east of the Pennines though)

My benchmark for the 195s is how they'd compare to a common-or-garden post-privatisation DMU (170/171/172/175/185), but I suspect that the benchmark for a lot of passengers will be against the trains they directly replace in the short term (e.g. 158s). If you're used to narrow doors at the ends of trains for your daily commute then a 195 will be transformational, of course, so they'll probably be popular for the average passenger in the short term.

The reality is passengers will compare them to what went before.

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

I took a ride on a 195 today from Manchester Pic to Barrow and whilst I am sure no one is particularly interested in my thoughts on these trains I do have one question to ask. What exactly is the big deal with these trains???? I really can’t see what everyone else is raving about.

I think you have to look at it that for every new 195 or 331, a clapped out and hated Pacer disappears from a Northern route somewhere.
You might have preferred a 185, but there aren't enough to go round (and they belong to TPE).
It took a mighty political effort to get new trains ordered for Northern.
The Barrow line is first because it previously had TPE 185s (and before that 175s), and needs fast trains for its run on the WCML.
Many other Northern lines have never had even that level of quality of train, and will get new/upgraded trains in the next year or so.
It's called "investment in the north".

 

[td97]

what do you mean by mean...?

It sucks really well presumably, if that image is anything to go by.

Yes, no smells are going to be lingering for long with that fan in operation. I didn't set out to review the toilet extractor fan; just something I noticed due to its prominence.

 

[Boysteve]

So the 08:16 Liverpool - MIA service used to be a 4car 156. It's now a 3-car 195 and is currently full with people standing down the aisles of all 3 coaches. This is a reduction from 280 seats to 204 sets. The additional 76 people having to stand might not be too impressed with the new trains, although they do get to stand in air conditioned units now!

 

[js1000]

Has a unit fallen over? 07:48 WIL-LIV service was 3 coaches instead of 6 this morning. Thought it might be temporarily deployed elsewhere to cover.

 

[ashkeba]

When I made the same comment on here about having a blow up cushion with you for the hard seats it was removed by the forum police as not being relevant to the thread.
having traveled all the way from Oxford Road to Barrow yesterday morning I thought the seats were firm but not hard and didn't suffer from numb bum at the end of the trip so my idea of hard seats must be different to some people on here

Small inflatable cushions are sold in the camping/festival sections of high street stores, including The Range.

 

[ashkeba]

It would strike me that "Barrow" and "Wigan" are the sensible abbreviations for these, given that Barrow only has one station that has that in the name (we aren't DB, and so wouldn't do something like "Barrow-in-Furness Dalton" and "Barrow-in-Furness Roose") and there are no trains that serve both Wigan stations.

Sounds like a rules-based abbreviation method, sacrificing the vowels first, last to first, then either doubled letters or hyphens would be next to go, again last first.

 

[Mathew S]

Has a unit fallen over? 07:48 WIL-LIV service was 3 coaches instead of 6 this morning. Thought it might be temporarily deployed elsewhere to cover.

In a word, yes. I can't quite work out what's gone on, but this morning's 0830 off the Airport to Barrow/Windermere was a 156, as was the 1330 Airport - Barrow/Windermere yesterday. Also the diagram which operates the 0930 off the airport is, according to Journeycheck, short formed.
So, yeah, something has gone awry somewhere.

 

[Mathew S]

Sounds like a rules-based abbreviation method, sacrificing the vowels first, last to first, then either doubled letters or hyphens would be next to go, again last first.

I've traveled on a few units now on Monday afternoon, Tuesday, yesterday, and again today and not seen any abbreviations on the PIS screens or elsewhere. Whatever was causing them on Monday morning must have been resolved already - presumably a software update.

 

[Jamesrob637]

It's getting a little confusing as to feedback on the trains versus comments on the diagrams - could the moderators move anything related to short-forming/replacements by 156s over to the dedicated thread in the Allocations/Diagrams/Timetables section?

 

[Bovverboy]

So the 08:16 Liverpool - MIA service used to be a 4car 156. It's now a 3-car 195 and is currently full with people standing down the aisles of all 3 coaches. This is a reduction from 280 seats to 204 sets. The additional 76 people having to stand might not be too impressed with the new trains, although they do get to stand in air conditioned units now!

I can't see the point in putting 195s on Airport-Liverpool at this stage, tbh. 156s are a perfectly good train so if a double 156 proves satisfactory on the route for the most part, what's the point in upsetting the apple cart? Yes, we know, sometimes trains would be short-formed, but if we're going to knock four-car trains down to three-car as a matter of course then they're effectively going to be short-formed all the time. Or, of course, we can increase four-car trains to six-car and then short-form the six-car trains (see post #2017).

Not to mention, if you introduce new stock on to two routes instead of one, it increases (I'm not saying doubles) the amount of immediate staff training required! I don't always follow the logic of how railways operate, sorry.

Why not introduce 3-car 195s on to routes that it has always been intended should get them (I, personally, can only guess as to which those are), and wait until some 2-car 195s are available before worrying about Liverpool-Airport semi-fasts? Then you could replace a four-car 156 set with a four-car 195 set, or, if you want a bit of extra capacity, replace a four-car 156 set with a 2-car 195/3-car 195 combination. To increase a four-car set to a six car set but to then immediately short-form it as a three-car set seems a bit counter-productive, to me.

 

[Bertie the bus]

They are besieged with niggles as they have been rushed into service!!!!
Not my words lol.
But I chuckled at his last statement

I'm not sure why that statement made you chuckle. It is obviously true. The number of units with door faults makes it pretty plain that these units entered service on 1st July because Northern needed them for the additional Manchester Airport - Barrow services starting that day. Not because they were ready to enter service.

 

[Bovverboy]

It's getting a little confusing as to feedback on the trains versus comments on the diagrams - could the moderators move anything related to short-forming/replacements by 156s over to the dedicated thread in the Allocations/Diagrams/Timetables section?

I think there's bound to be overlap between the two threads, and, up to now, there has been. Do we really need two threads? As the 195s entry into service settles down, the number of messages posted per day is likely to dwindle rapidly, anyway.

 

[sprinterguy]

I'm not sure why that statement made you chuckle.

Because of how badly delayed their initial entry into service has been compared to what was originally promised, I presume.

 

[Bovverboy]

The number of units with door faults makes it pretty plain that these units entered service on 1st July because Northern needed them for the additional Manchester Airport - Barrow services starting that day. Not because they were ready to enter service.

I estimate that only one unit was necessary in order to enhance the Barrow service, plus a second to replace the 319 which had been doing Airport-Preston. That in turn had to be replaced on Chat Moss stoppers by a DMU set anyway (four-car, not three!) so the increased DMU requirement has, by my calculation, been of just one unit.

As to the 195s, they could have been introduced progressively as they became available for service. To introduce them in a 'big bang' smacks of trying to milk the situation for its maximum publicity value, and, bearing in mind that no single service has gone over to 195s, that was never going to be all that successful anyway.

 

[Llama]

I'm not sure why that statement made you chuckle. It is obviously true. The number of units with door faults makes it pretty plain that these units entered service on 1st July because Northern needed them for the additional Manchester Airport - Barrow services starting that day. Not because they were ready to enter service.

Think more along the lines of 'targets' being the reason they were pushed for Monday.

 

[Llama]

I wonder if said guard realises how much of our lives are run by computers these days? As for being rushed into service, well it may be the case but a glance over at the Pacer Withdrawal thread will explain why there is a growing urgency to get them into service, because use of Pacers into 2020 is likely to be a political and legal hot potato.

If you knew how unreliable the software was on these trains, and some of it governing safety critical systems, you wouldn't be saying that as though it was a good thing. The hardware hasn't been much better either.

 

[Chris217]

I'm not sure why that statement made you chuckle. It is obviously true. The number of units with door faults makes it pretty plain that these units entered service on 1st July because Northern needed them for the additional Manchester Airport - Barrow services starting that day. Not because they were ready to enter service.

The rushed into service statement.... (bearing in mind how delayed they are into service) is what made me chuckle.

We still don't know why some of the tests weren't done in pairs.
That may have sorted coupling up issues!

 

[supervc-10]

If you've been on an Airbus airliner, then unless it's an A300 or A310 (both barely in service now), it was a completely fly-by-wire aircraft that has demonstrated that fly-by-wire with software protections are incredibly safe.

Software isn't by definition bad. Bad software is bad, just like bad hardware is bad. The advantage of software of course is that once decent software is written, it's easy to update it. Hardware requires much more involvement (and cost!) to fix problems!

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

So the 08:16 Liverpool - MIA service used to be a 4car 156. It's now a 3-car 195 and is currently full with people standing down the aisles of all 3 coaches. This is a reduction from 280 seats to 204 sets. The additional 76 people having to stand might not be too impressed with the new trains, although they do get to stand in air conditioned units now!

They can always opt for the xx28 EMU service instead, and enjoy 4-car comfort (except when the 319 is substituted by a 323).
It will take a little longer though.
In due course that service might become a 331.
I would also hope the xx16 will become 2x2-car 195, but we are obviously a year or so from that point.

 

[deltic08]

A few pics of 195s on there introductory day.

View attachment 65120 View attachment 65122 View attachment 65124 View attachment 65125

And back home on the norm for CLC stoppers!

View attachment 65126

Look what you could have won!! Lol

The PIS screen says 101 brand new trains across our system. Don't they mean carriages? If it was trains Northern would not be 38 short when 101 Pacers are withdrawn.

 

[EE Andy b1]

The PIS screen says 101 brand new trains across our system. Don't they mean carriages? If it was trains Northern would not be 38 short when 101 Pacers are withdrawn.

I believe it will be 58 Class 195s and 43 Class 331s = 101 new trains for Northern.

 

[mikemcniven]

Went to Gatley this morning to see some of the 195's running services, things today seemed more smoother, the doors opened without issue and all were running on time

195114 at Gatley on a service to Manchester Airport from Barrow-in-Furness


Northern 195114 by Mike McNiven, on Flickr

195120 passing Gatley on a service to Liverpool Lime Street


Northern 195120 by Mike McNiven, on Flickr

 

[superalbs]

Does anyone else think the bins are not very good? Tiny opening, and hard to find! Can barely fit a hot drink cup in them lol.

 

[superkev]

Can someone refresh my memory as to which routes these are to go on after the Barrow and CLC as well as which is next.
Thanks
K

 

[deltic08]

I believe it will be 58 Class 195s and 43 Class 331s = 101 new trains for Northern.

Thank you for clarifying Andy. I suppose 331s will be replacing some 319s? Yet more surplus electric units. We need more electrification and soon.

 

[Bletchleyite]

If you've been on an Airbus airliner, then unless it's an A300 or A310 (both barely in service now), it was a completely fly-by-wire aircraft that has demonstrated that fly-by-wire with software protections are incredibly safe.

The level of testing and redundancy required for that is expensive, though (for instance there are on some such aircraft 3 flight control computers developed by 3 different companies, if all 3 agree, good, if 2 agree, do that and warn, if all 3 are different, errrrmmmm). What was it again? Cheap As F....?

 

[fowler9]

Does anyone else think the bins are not very good? Tiny opening, and hard to find! Can barely fit a hot drink cup in them lol.

Yeah, if I had to nit pick there is a small bin in the bog and a tiny one in the carriage. Replacing double 156's with a three car unit seems a retrograde step. Today the none 195 service from Lime Street to the airport is a 156 and a 150. Admittedly an improvement on the single 142 on an airport service the other week. Someone in charge has to get a grip.