There are plenty of problems with the Grand Central fleet. The Grand Central fleet has historically been less reliable than the Hull Trains examples, and the reliability of both fleets has reduced proportionally over the past two to three years, it's only in recent months that reliability of Hull Trains fleet has really dropped off a cliff. The possible shortcomings in the maintenance regime at Crofton depot (and reason for hire of the HST set) have been well discussed on the thread linked in post 11.
For better or for worse, Grand Central only relatively recently got rid of their HSTs, for fleet commonality and to ensure post-2019 PRM-TSI disability compliance. I can't see them taking sets on again, and there's no way they'd be able to get sets converted to power door operation before the end of this year.
I wouldn’t be surprised if Arriva win the next East Midlands Franchise or CrossCountry - order new Bombardier 125MPH units and then tag on a few more for Grand Central.
That's exactly what I plan to do with them.
So only a year after GC swapped their few existing HSTs for additional 180s, to enable standardisation, portion working etc? That seems fairly unlikely to happen...
Correct, but that has not proven tenable in practice: prior to the December TT change, 1S99, the 17:25/26 Leeds - Hebden Bridge was as honoured in the breach as the observance, blowing a hole in PM peak capacity on the Calder Valley. As a result of pressure from various quarters, Northern have, to their credit, recognised this and now that train is far more likely to be a Neville Hill kickout than a 180 (I've not been on it this year as a 180 myself) - indeed the ECS path 5S99 is now a train from NL, not one from Crofton, as it used to be!
Well, for one, they were manufactured by completely separate companies...
Did not run, more often than not. It's a Hamlet reference. I had to recheck the post to check it wasn't the esteemed member for the Most Select Part of Rural Cheshire East posting it!
They don't call them Almost for nothing...
Not really - Section 54 agreements (the one you were fishing for) have largely disappeared from the leasing market, other than the mega-procurements for IEP and Thameslink which have a couple of decades to run. Apart from these, all of the existing section 54s will elapse in the next few years, with the last being some of the original Desiro fleets in 2025. Very hard to see why DfT would take on a risk for a service they cannot mandate operation of, especially when they now actively avoid it for franchised services, but I doubt it has any impact, there has always been stock availability for OA operators.
Why would Ireland want junk we're trying hard to forget about in GB? They've already been burnt by Alstom units so I think they'd exercise some caution before considering these units, even if they were available.
