A very good question and one I doubt even GWR know the answer to. If it were opening tomorrow I would assume just stretching the west fleet more, and accepting more short forming.
That will cost money though.
2024 is now only 12-24 months away, and if the rolling stock is to be available for opening day then they probably need at least a rough idea where it will come from. The Dec24 timetable will already be under development if normal LTP timescales still apply.The Portishead station won't be built till 2024, so no rush.Portishead to Bristol train line gets big boost from planning consent
www.n-somerset.gov.uk
Tory MPs do quite often use trains to get to London, but more importantly tory constituents tend to be commuters.
It would only be electrified once Bristol TM is done, or as part of that project, so I think being wired on opening is a tad ambitious.
How many years late are the GWR 769s? If they couldn't get them into service by now, what realistic hope is there for 2024? Real shame it didn't work out.The Portishead station won't be built till 2024, so no rush.Portishead to Bristol train line gets big boost from planning consent
The DFTs priority is to stop any spending over the next few months so ticket price increases are kept low to hold back inflation, even if service declines, Conservative MPs probably don't use trains, so will not matter.
The new Portishead line could be electrified, but in a couple of years Portersbrook might suggest that some refurbished 769 "Flex" trains they have in store, with newish engines, might suit the Portishead line at low cost.
Post 35 of this thread, posted exactly four years ago, stated that deliveries to GWR would start in July 2019, with introduction to service shortly afterwards.
Ex-TfW 150s would fit that timescale, wouldn’t they? They have the advantage of no crew or fitter training and spares commonality with the existing GWR fleet.
I did think that, What with the likely delay of the release of any 158s, at least the somewhat go common and go anywhere 150s would help to fill a much needed gap. Ironically they could even have some of the ex Wessex units back!
The irony i can see here is 30+ year old BR DMUs are going to be retained whilst less than 30 year old EMUs get scrapped.
Any additional 150s to Great Western certainly wouldn’t be direct replacements for the 769s. They would just head to Exeter, be based out of there, and work the services the cascaded 165s would have done had the 769 program had worked.
The rant about HS2 has nothing to do with this class 769 thread and it merely shows a lack of knowledge about the way HS2 is funded.
"effectively pulled off a scrap line"? More than a touch hyperbolic.
You'd send them to the west, where the staff knowledge already exists with the 16x currently used on the "Square of Despair" around Exeter used to provide the Portishead service.
Wouldn’t bet against TfW 150 / 158 being the ‘new’ growth units for GWR.
2024 is the date given for the start of construction, it will be at least a few more years till the line opens, even if that target is met.
I think there is a 769 today at Oxford I will go check
Half life, not old.
Please, no more rebuilt units. Nothing rebuilt over the later part of the last decade has shown itself to be that great (SWR 484s excepted purely as they have stayed 3rd rail units).
They were 4th rail!
(although, 4th to 3rd is a rather easier conversion than strapping diesel engines on...)
But maybe only needed until 2028 depending on the proposed GWR sprinter replacement programme that has been mooted, also, most of the TfW 150s are ex Wessex/Valley lines with the 2+2 seating, same as the majority of the GWR ones.
Very little chance - one of the significant reasons they are surplus to requirements at GWR is that no drivers are trained on them. That issue would exist wherever they turned up.
I didn't realise that the GWR 769s have ASDO. Something else to go wrong! Which platforms are shorter than 80 metres?
