Robertj21a
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Are they actually all still available for service or have some now been withdrawn ?
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Class 142 diagrams post-May timetable change
- Thread starter Seán Elliott
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If the 195s (149 carriages in total) are replacing Northern's 142s and 144s (214 carriages in total), what's going to make up the capacity shortfall?
Killingworth
Established Member
You'd presume completely wrong! Check the pricing. There can be big savings playing TPE and East Midlands against Northern. It can cost more than twice the price on TPE or East Midlands to some on Northern. But not every day. Saturdays can be the opposite of a weekday.
As an example, an advance fare from Sheffield to Piccadilly next Saturday morning could cost as little as £5.20 on Northern or as much as £21.60 by TPE, for trains departing only 3 minutes apart. OK, the Northern train may take 28 minutes longer, but which would you choose?
9.11 TPE £8.20 51 minutes
9.14 Northern £5.20 79 minutes
9.40 East Midlands £11.40 57 minutes
10.11 TPE £9.20 51 minutes
10.14 Northern £5.50 79 minutes
10.40 East Midlands £13.40 57 minutes
11.11 TPE £16.50 51 minutes
11.14 Northern £5.20 77 minutes
11.41 East Midlands £13.40 56 minutes
12.11 TPE £21.60 51 minutes
12.14 Northern £5.20 77 minutes
It's all about capacity. Badly managed at present. No spare coaches? By coincidence I'd heard about this very issue and checked what happens this morning.
The Northern Class 150 at 9.14 left with many standees and at least 4 bikes, two of which had massive pannier bags, those two alone taking the space of 4 potential standees. Several users had very large bags clearly destined for Manchester Airport. Suffice to say that both the 9.14 and 10.14 were operated by Pacers until very recently causing passengers to be left on the platform at Sheffield. The 10.14 today was a 156 that was very well filled with standees down the length of both carriages. At the comparative prices it's no surprise that TPE are losing passengers to Northern - but TPE services are rammed full as well! But they cream off the fare income better.
However, this is a Pacer thread so I'll take further discussion elsewhere. A different dimension for Hope Valley Capacity!
Whattraintoday
Member
Two factors:
Length (Pacers are 15/15.5m per carriage, a 195 is 23m - half as long again)
+ cascaded older stock from everywhere in the country.
Class 158 on the saltburn to Darlington service today
What stock now remains to be cascaded?
xotGD
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There is a dedicated thread on Northern Pacer withdrawals. It runs to several hundred posts, which is quite amazing considering that there have been no withdrawals yet!
I was going to ask the same question. I think they've had all the Scottish units now. Despite this all the pacers are still going strong, unless anyone knows differently. Of course once the 150/158s have all had PRM mods then they'll be able to diagram slightly more of them.
I notice that there haven't been any responses to my question. What's the answer - not many, or none at all?
As to capacity, I admit I was thrown a bit by the fact that a 195 carriage hasn't a great many more seats than a Pacer carriage. I agree that length is a better measure of total capacity, and that indeed would seem to indicate that the 149 x 195 carriages will have a total capacity equal to, or perhaps slightly greater than, 214 Pacer carriages. But weren't all the TOCs telling us how much they were going to increase total capacity?
I spent Monday and Tuesday based around Leeds. There are still Pacers on every route out of Leeds except towards Dewsbury. They also dominate local trains around Darlington, Middlesbrough and Sheffield. One of the best bits is Leeds to Wakefield Westgate which they run on twice per hour. It's a steep climb out of Leeds so in one direction they slog for several minutes at 55 mph, going the other way they fly down the gradient at 75. They also have some runs from York to Selby or Hull which have fast running.
The 144s aren't too bad although the seats that were fitted during the refurb 15-20 years ago are very tired now. I had a trip on 144012 which is very smart inside. The 142s are a very mixed bag. On some of them the engines run smoothly and there aren't any rattles. On others, there are dozens of rattles. On one the glass draught screen by the rear door vibrated very badly whenever the engines powered up.
The 144s aren't too bad although the seats that were fitted during the refurb 15-20 years ago are very tired now. I had a trip on 144012 which is very smart inside. The 142s are a very mixed bag. On some of them the engines run smoothly and there aren't any rattles. On others, there are dozens of rattles. On one the glass draught screen by the rear door vibrated very badly whenever the engines powered up.
61653 HTAFC
Veteran Member
The Dewsbury route still gets Pacers too, they often crop up on the Leeds-Southport via Dewsbury both solo and in multiple with Sprinters. Likewise you'll often get something other than a Pacer on either of the Wakefield Westgate services, so if anyone's planning a Pacer bash there are very few Leeds routes where there'll definitely be one.
err... that is the answer to your question - the new trains are longer, plus we've had transfers in of 150s from GWR and LNWR; 156s, 158s & 170s from Scotrail; and the impending 769s.
Well I'm afraid that doesn't answer my question at all, the question having been 'What stock now remains to be cascaded?'. From your own response (and no-one else's) the answer would appear to be - just the 769s.
Last edited:
Greybeard33
Established Member
To be pedantic, the 769s do not "remain to be cascaded". They were already cascaded from Thameslink to Northern as 319s. But, pending completion of their conversion, several Sprinters are employed on Wigan NW to Alderley Edge and Stalybridge duties for which the 769s were intended.
DJH1971
Established Member
They also seem to be on some MAN-LIV (via NLW) services at present, which are normally booked for 319's.
The following journeys are currently being covered by a DMU set, Mondays to Fridays only.
0542 Wilmslow - Liverpool Lime Street
0757 Liverpool Lime Street - Manchester Victoria
1702 Manchester Victoria - Liverpool Lime Street
1817 Liverpool Lime Street - Manchester Victoria
1927 Manchester Victoria - Liverpool Lime Street
If anyone sees DMUs covering any other duty, could they report the event to the forum?
I keep forgetting about the 1Jxx to Southport. Didn't see any Pacers on there this time but I did in December. All three Knottingley diagrams were Pacers both days and every stopper to Sheffield (via Castleford or via Wakefield) that I saw was a Pacer. Huddersfield via Halifax seems to be another good bet.
61653 HTAFC
Veteran Member
Leeds to Huddersfield via Halifax seems to be seeing more Pacers since the timetable change. Tuesday had one on Hudds to Castleford too.
NorthWestRover
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08:55 Wigan NW to Leeds
09:19 Liverpool LS to Manchester Oxford Road
14:21 Wigan NW to Liverpool LS
Were all Pacers today. The first one was a pair and I was surprised the third one wasn't a 319.
09:19 Liverpool LS to Manchester Oxford Road
14:21 Wigan NW to Liverpool LS
Were all Pacers today. The first one was a pair and I was surprised the third one wasn't a 319.
I wondered if anyone could possibly help me. I am looking at spending a number of upcoming weeks which I have landed free trying to catch all Northern 142s & 144s before withdrawal.
142s are obviously a much larger class, so I wondered if anyone could give me some definite diagrams that 142s are booked to operate. This would be a great starting point for me to start piecing my plans together. Anywhere on the Northern network is fine.
Many Thanks
142s are obviously a much larger class, so I wondered if anyone could give me some definite diagrams that 142s are booked to operate. This would be a great starting point for me to start piecing my plans together. Anywhere on the Northern network is fine.
Many Thanks
darloscott
Member
You'll find them on a lot of the Manchester network, usually in pairs. They won't go to Buxton however. Lines like New Mills, Rose Hill are a good bet in south Manchester.
Eastern side is more my patch... all of the Saltburn-Darlington/Bishop Auckland (5 diagrams) remain 142 operated, but not much else in NE corner now. Leeds-Knottingley, Sheffield via Castleford, Sheffield via Moorthorpe and Sheffield-Adwick/Gainsborough/Hull(slows) are all majority Pacer runs.
Eastern side is more my patch... all of the Saltburn-Darlington/Bishop Auckland (5 diagrams) remain 142 operated, but not much else in NE corner now. Leeds-Knottingley, Sheffield via Castleford, Sheffield via Moorthorpe and Sheffield-Adwick/Gainsborough/Hull(slows) are all majority Pacer runs.
PHILIPE
Veteran Member
158s have recently visited Bishop Auckland but don't know if actually digrammed or not
Manchester Oxford Road and Salford Crescent are both good bets, both for spotting and also if you're trying to scratch them in for travel.
At Oxford Road you won't get the terminating locals from New Mills and Rose Hill but you will get the Oxford Road - Liverpool shuttles which, certainly back in Feb and March, regularly produced pairs of 142's.
At Salford Crescent you'll get everything you would get at Victoria (apart from maybe 1 unit which shuttles back and forth to Stalybridge via Ashton) plus some services which head towards / come from the Oxford Road direction.
There are several run-about tickets, my preference of which is the Greater Manchester Wayfarer as it has no p.m. peak time restrictions and allows travel over a very large area, which allow 'headless chicken' moves all over the place if chasing them for travel.
Link here: http://www.railrover.org/pages/greater-manchester-wayfarer.html
Hope this helps.
Some of the weekday evening York to Hull trains are booked for 144s. Beware that the 18:50 off York is 158+144 and the 144 is locked out of use.
I've said this before and I'll say it again - you've just got off a transatlantic flight at Manchester airport and need to get the train back to Liverpool. You are tired, jet lagged, have a ton of luggage and just want to get home. You go to catch your train and it's a Pacer!
Or you need to get to Manchester Airport to catch a plane for your Summer holiday in Costa del Ingles Tossa. Weighed down with luggage, a screaming toddler and a baby in a pram, you go to Liverpool Lime Street to catch the train for the first leg of your long journey, and it's a Pacer.
What a horrible start or finish to your holiday!
A 156 with extremely narrow doors would be a lot worse than a Pacer to board with luggage. I find them (156s) difficult enough to board with a couple of shopping bags.
Killingworth
Established Member
Here in Sheffield we have a direct hourly service of 185s from TPE direct to the airport. So why are Northern Pacers for Piccadilly often full of luggage clearly destined for the airport?
1. The TPE service is often too full to get aboard.
2. TPE services can be rammed full despite their fares being 2, 3 or 4 times the slow Northern price for journeys starting only a few minutes later.
Conequently passengers wanting to join the Pacer at intermediate stations have difficulty getting aboard. Which underlines Northern's difficulty. The guard can't patrol the train so they don't know how many are aboard and they don't know how much revenue they're missing. It also means the annual passenger statistics for all stations on the route, bar Piccadilly, are severely under recorded.
Pacers have been amazingly successful in carrying bigger loads, more often and for longer than they were ever designed for. The problems that leaves us with means we'll miss them when they have to go.
1. The TPE service is often too full to get aboard.
2. TPE services can be rammed full despite their fares being 2, 3 or 4 times the slow Northern price for journeys starting only a few minutes later.
Conequently passengers wanting to join the Pacer at intermediate stations have difficulty getting aboard. Which underlines Northern's difficulty. The guard can't patrol the train so they don't know how many are aboard and they don't know how much revenue they're missing. It also means the annual passenger statistics for all stations on the route, bar Piccadilly, are severely under recorded.
Pacers have been amazingly successful in carrying bigger loads, more often and for longer than they were ever designed for. The problems that leaves us with means we'll miss them when they have to go.
Seán Elliott
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That would be amazing - thank you so much!
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