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Most Inappropriate Stock

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Mark_re

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Hi all,

I'm wondering what people's opinions are as to the scheduled service which is formed of the most inappropriate stock?

I've seen Brighton - Great Malvern services formed of 150s before, which is just crazy for such a long journey. Though equally, some of the Oxford stoppers are formed by HSTs, which is also mad, and presumably a function of their seating capacity.

Also, I remember about a year ago, I think an HST failed in the morning peak, so the sleeper was sent to do an Oxford - Paddington run. Do I remember this correctly?
 
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cle

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180s up north?

Or certainly on the routes they were used on. Others with less stopping and less wires like TPE might have made more sense.
 
5

55Flyer

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Two unit Pacers on the South Pennine MAN - SHF route via Edale. In extreme weather or even just heavy rain - some of the units rain in badly. In very cold weather in the Peak District, e.g. below -10c in last 2 winters they are absolutely freezing cold with their thin walls and very large windows. Weren't these trains designed for short city hops? i.e. not a trans-pennine route at 1000 ft above sea level?
 
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northwichcat

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55Flyer said:
Two unit Pacers on the South Pennine MAN - SHF route via Edale. In extreme weather or even just heavy rain - some of the units rain in badly. In very cold weather in the Peak District, e.g. below -10c in last 2 winters they are absolutely freezing cold with their thin walls and very large windows. Weren't these trains designed for short city hops? i.e. not a trans-pennine route at 1000 ft above sea level?
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No they were designed for short low patronage routes which included the West Country branch lines and lines like Huddersfield-Sheffield.

I had the misfortune to be on one last Winter when there were overnight lows of -16oC forecast. The windows had iced over and Arctic winds were blowing through the doors when it was travelling along at 70-75mph and that was between Manchester and Altrincham, never mind the Hope Valley Line, which I think was closed because the weather was so bad.
 
anthony263

anthony263

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19 Aug 2008
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South Wales
Mark_re said:
Hi all,

I'm wondering what people's opinions are as to the scheduled service which is formed of the most inappropriate stock?

I've seen Brighton - Great Malvern services formed of 150s before, which is just crazy for such a long journey. Though equally, some of the Oxford stoppers are formed by HSTs, which is also mad, and presumably a function of their seating capacity.

Also, I remember about a year ago, I think an HST failed in the morning peak, so the sleeper was sent to do an Oxford - Paddington run. Do I remember this correctly?
Click to expand...

Yes you are correct about the sleeper being used to form the 07:22 London Paddington - Oxford service, although i dont think some in FGW were not happy about it though.
 
LNW-GW Joint

LNW-GW Joint

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22 Feb 2011
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Mold, Clwyd
Mark_re said:
Though equally, some of the Oxford stoppers are formed by HSTs, which is also mad, and presumably a function of their seating capacity.
Click to expand...

This was common on the Western Region in the days before Inter-City demanded they be put on the Midland main line rather than work Thames Valley locals.

I was on Oxford station once when an HST was announced as the "Inter-Village High Speed Train to Reading " to laughs all round.
Nice to hear a sense of humour on the railway.
 
valenta

valenta

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The Toon
Pacers from Carlisle - Middlesbrough. Or Hexham - Middlesbrough on a Newcastle matchday!
 
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Chapeltom

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Tainan, Taiwan.
I boarded a Manchester Victoria to Blackpool North service at Salford at 1935 in March with a 142! Fortunately I was only going to Horwich!
 
5

55Flyer

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18 Mar 2011
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jcollins said:
I had the misfortune to be on one last Winter when there were overnight lows of -16oC forecast. The windows had iced over and Arctic winds were blowing through the doors when it was travelling along at 70-75mph and that was between Manchester and Altrincham, never mind the Hope Valley Line, which I think was closed because the weather was so bad.
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I did experience that snowy night in SHF - the line was closed for a time last December 1st 2010 and part of the next day, I think.

Some of the heaviest snow fall I have seen in such a short space of time. It didn't blizzard or drift just fell straight down. We finally left left SHF on a Pacer at around 00:30 (was scheduled to have departed at 20:30!) if I remember right and were lucky to make it through the Hope Valley at all.

They sent a class 37 through first with small ploughs on the front, otherwise the train would not have made it. A bit hair raising but exciting! and one to remember for the 20 or so passengers that got home in the middle of the night that night. I think i would have preferred one of the old heavy DMUs to a Pacer for this one!
 
fgwrich

fgwrich

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Hampshire
cle said:
180s up north?

Or certainly on the routes they were used on. Others with less stopping and less wires like TPE might have made more sense.
Click to expand...

Yep, And down here in the South - 450s on the portsmouth services - Personnaly id find them that bit slightly better if they had an interior simular to the 350/1s...

442s on the Gatwick Express - What Southern should have done, is reconfigure and refurbish some of the electrostars to go on Gatwick services, with the 442s also being refurbished, but deliberatly placed on the Brighton Fast services from the start, with the retention of the Snug / Buffet / First Class compartment from the start!

And id have to agree with the use of FGWs HSTs on the Oxford services - Passed one at Reading yesterday which wasnt even on a fast service! Calling at Tilehurst, Pangbourne, Goring & Streatly, Cholsey, Didcot Parkway & Oxford :roll: What a waste of rescources, but what else can FGW do? At least the arrival of the 180s will at least be able to part solve this problem! :roll:

As for the Night Riveras day working - was it a London Paddington to Oxford service - thaught it was the other way around, though obviously the sleeper section was indeed locked out of use! And yes, management were not happy about that (unfortunatly!)

Byt the sounds of it, id also have to include Northern Rail too...And maybe the 'we don't micromanage' micromaging Department for Transport - Like the 2007 Decesion of heavily cutting back FGWs Local Lines / West Fleet...
 
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TEW

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HSTs are only used on Oxford stoppers in the peaks, and even then they are fast London-Maidenhead. They are needed for the capacity, 180s won't be put on these trains as they don't provide enough capacity.

The sleeper ran an Oxford-London service. It certainly wasn't a spur of the moment decision, it was common knowledge that it was going to happen the day before, but the idea didn't go down well. After all the sleeper only provides three seated coaches, and they are in a 2+1 formation. The sleeper has run Penzance-Plymouth stoppers on a number of occasions due to failures. They have spare coaches at Penzance though allowing up to 5 seated coaches in a formation.
 
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northwichcat

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fgwrich said:
Yep, And down here in the South - 450s on the portsmouth services - Personnaly id find them that bit slightly better if they had an interior simular to the 350/1s...
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We have 142s and 150s with 3+2 seating up North running longer services than the 450 Portsmouth services. I wish some of the people complaining about 2 hours on a 450 would try 2 hours on a Merseytravel 142.

The 180s were only supposed to be in the North West for a few months until the LO 150s were released so they put them on routes that 175s were already cleared for (which made it easier and cheaper to get 180 clearance.)

However, the 172 delivery was delayed so the LO 150s were released later. On top of that NXEC, who the 180s were subleased off, lost the EC franchise and EC didn't want the 180s it allowed FGW to take the LO 150s and not release any units to Northern (according to the DfT cascade program from 2008 Northern were supposed to get the 150s released from the London rail concession) which meant the 180s stayed with Northern a lot longer than intended.
 
blacknight

blacknight

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158 doing Norwich-Liverpool run 2 car DMU doing east west intercity run filling up along the way at Nottingham Sheffield & Manchester:-x
 
T

TEW

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jcollins said:
However, the 172 delivery was delayed so the LO 150s were released later. On top of that NXEC, who the 180s were subleased off, lost the EC franchise and EC didn't want the 180s it allowed FGW to take the LO 150s and not release any units to Northern (according to the DfT cascade program from 2008 Northern were supposed to get the 150s released from the London rail concession) which meant the 180s stayed with Northern a lot longer than intended.
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The LO 150s were originally going to go to Northern when the DfT where planning on having the new DMU carriages built which would have been split between FGW, Northern and TPE I believe. When that got scrapped FGW received 150s first allowing LHCS trains to stop (they were costing the DfT the most money to run) and allowing ATW to regain 3 150s from FGW.
 
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northwichcat

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TEW said:
The LO 150s were originally going to go to Northern when the DfT where planning on having the new DMU carriages built which would have been split between FGW, Northern and TPE I believe. When that got scrapped FGW received 150s first allowing LHCS trains to stop (they were costing the DfT the most money to run) and allowing ATW to regain 3 150s from FGW.
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The plans changing is what I was getting at. If Northern had been told they've have 180s for 3 years they'd have probably put them on the circa 3 hour service between Blackpool and York and put paired up Sprinters on the current 180 diagrams. However, they expected to have them in service for up to 1 year before NXEC would have them ready for running the Lincoln-London services so Northern looked for they thought would be the cheapest option of utilising the 180s.
 
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junglejames

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Are we going for a regular service, or one offs? Like people mentioning trains that are short formed etc.

Anyway, no matter what, I think a Voyager on any service going. I cant think where they are just right for. Definitely not XC services though.

Oh, and just to cover myself, as the voyager lovers will soon be on to shoot me down. This has nothing to do with the length of the voyagers. In fact, make them longer, and they are even more inappropriate due to the amount of fuel they would use.
It is purely to do with everything else.
 
M

Minilad

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Anywhere B link goes
junglejames said:
Are we going for a regular service, or one offs? Like people mentioning trains that are short formed etc.

Anyway, no matter what, I think a Voyager on any service going. I cant think where they are just right for. Definitely not XC services though.

Oh, and just to cover myself, as the voyager lovers will soon be on to shoot me down. This has nothing to do with the length of the voyagers. In fact, make them longer, and they are even more inappropriate due to the amount of fuel they would use.
It is purely to do with everything else.
Click to expand...

Never yet come across one on here !!
 
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