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Northern Pacer Withdrawals - Info?

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Oh yes that's not in question, I remember them running in 1985. Unless 142005 was significantly delayed entering service then Northern are wrong, which isn't surprising.
Not Northern's fault as they're just quoting the officially recorded 'date entered service' from Rolling Stock Library. If the date is wrong we need to blame BR for entering incorrect data 30+ years ago.:)
For info 142004 and 142006 have dates of early September 1985.
 

sprinterguy

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This press release on the withdrawal of 142005 states that it first entered service in 20th February 1987.
https://scontent.fmla1-2.fna.fbcdn....=25116fd7fd207b5f0c33ec7c1d1f50db&oe=5DEAF3F3

I don't think that this is correct. I am sure that 142001 - 142014 entered service on the Oldham loop in 1985. The semi fast Liverpool LS to Preston/Blackpool Pacer service started in 1986 and I have seen a picture of later built 142051 at Liverpool LS around 28th august 1986 on the launch day.

Can anyone confirm the true date when 142005 first entered service?
142005 is noted in "The Allocation History of BR Diesels and Electrics" as being allocated to Newton Heath from September 1985, as per the rest of the initial GMPTE batch of 14. Even the last built unit of the class, 142096, is noted as being allocated to Leeds Neville Hill from 29th July 1987, so 142005 would have entered service well before that.
1989 a month into it's service life IIRC.
The Liverpool Lime Street collision occurred on 5th October 1991, by which point 142059 was five years old.

However it doesn't seem to have had a great deal of luck to begin with, because after allocation to Newton Heath in December 1986 it was used as a source of spares to keep other units running for three years until it was restored to service in September 1989, only to strike objects placed on the line near Wigan Wallgate two days later which took it out of service again! It was swiftly repaired after this setback however, so had managed far more than a month in service before it's untimely demise at Lime Street.
 

61653 HTAFC

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Fair enough - Certainly seems to have had a shockingly short active life whichever way you look at it.
Not quite as bad as 141001, which didn't ever run in service until after the refurbishment (as 141101) which saw the front ends tidied up and the tightlock couplers replaced with BSI.
 

ed1971

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1989 a month into it's service life IIRC.

I don't know the exact date when 142059 crashed, but it definitely was October 1991. It had been fitted with the direct acting brake system modification. 142059 seemed to have been jinxed. It only ever spent a few weeks in service during it's short career. I caught it from Wigan to Preston in March 1990. The SCG gearbox on one carriage was coming out of gear all the time and on reaching Preston the driver told a fitter that there was no way he could take it back. I caught it a week later and it was repaired. However I caught it again in June 1990 and it had been converted to Voith.
 
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ed1971

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Sadly I can't, but with such a low number you'd have thought it was one of the first.

The picture below can't be dated to a day, but clearly shows an early Pacer coming off the Hope Valley line from New Mills at Dore in late spring/early summer 1985. Extreme magnification suggests in might be 142020. My son and I were viewing the newly cleared site after platforms 2, 3 and 4 had been demolished, platform 1 shortened, and the line singled through the station. I think the contractors' Portaloo is still there at the end of the platform. The people gathered on the platform may have been train spotters, viewers of the new platform arrangement, or waiting for this train to return outbound from Sheffield.
View attachment 67315

Thanks for photo. It wouldn't have been 142020 as that was a Cornish Skipper and would have been working in Devon and Cornwall at the time. IIRC the Cornish skippers were moved North around October 1987.
 

Killingworth

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Thanks for photo. It wouldn't have been 142020 as that was a Cornish Skipper and would have been working in Devon and Cornwall at the time. IIRC the Cornish skippers were moved North around October 1987.
Will have to find original slide and rescan to see if I can pull more out.

It would have been Sheffield based in those days.
 

sprinterguy

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Will have to find original slide and rescan to see if I can pull more out.

It would have been Sheffield based in those days.
Haven't the Hope Valley stoppers always been the preserve of Newton Heath allocated Pacers? Certainly, the early GMPTE orange units were regular performers in the late eighties/early nineties. I don't believe Sheffield has ever had an official Pacer allocation.

Definitely concur that it's a photo of a unit in its early days though, rather than a unit in the later GMPTE grey/red/white livery as suggested before: The units lost the data panels on the cab fronts when they were repainted in Regional Railways days.
 
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sprinterguy

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Not quite as bad as 141001, which didn't ever run in service until after the refurbishment (as 141101) which saw the front ends tidied up and the tightlock couplers replaced with BSI.
You don't always realise until you read accounts like this of just how unreliable or how little use some of the railbuses saw in their early years: Relatively speaking, they've served extremely well in the following thirty years (Class 141s excluded, of course) since the engine and transmission upgrades !
I don't know the exact date when 142059 crashed, but it definitely was October 1991. It had been fitted with the direct acting brake system modification. 142059 seemed to have been jinxed. It only ever spent a few weeks in service during it's short career. I caught it from Wigan to Preston in March 1990. The SCG gearbox on one carriage was coming out of gear all the time and on reaching Preston the driver told a fitter that there was no way he could take it back. I caught it a week later and it was repaired. However I caught it again in June 1990 and it had been converted to Voith.
Coupled with the summary I gave above, 142059 seems to have been a particularly troublesome class member!
 
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Killingworth

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Haven't the Hope Valley stoppers always been the preserve of Newton Heath allocated Pacers? Certainly, the early GMPTE orange units were regular performers in the late eighties/early nineties. I don't believe Sheffield has ever had an official Pacer allocation.

Definitely concur that it's a photo of a unit in its early days though, rather than a unit in the later GMPTE grey/red/white livery as suggested before: The units lost the data panels on the cab fronts when they were repainted in Regional Railways days.

No, I can't immediately date the change, but in 1985 the stopping service wasn't even a regular 2 hourly frequency.

There was a service from Piccadilly to New Mills that connected with the Sheffield trains. Quite separate. They pulled through and went into a siding before returning with their Sheffield crews.

Then it was rationalised so that some trains out of Piccadilly ran through to Sheffield but with Manchester crews.

It's not a subject for this thread but I will have more details of when the switch happened if I go rooting around in old records. :)
 

61653 HTAFC

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You don't always realise until you read accounts like this of just how unreliable or how little use some of the railbuses saw in their early years: Relatively speaking, they've served extremely well in the following thirty years (Class 141s excluded, of course) since the engine and transmission upgrades !

Coupled with the summary I gave above, 142059 seems to have been a particularly troublesome class member!
One thing in favour of the Pacers (even the 141s) was that whilst they had their quirks and faults, there was little to go wrong with them that couldn't be solved by a fitter with a toolbox, a can of WD-40 and a roll of gaffer tape.

Modern units with their on-board computers require a laptop and a degree in computer programming just to diagnose the fault!*

*= please note that this comparison is intentionally hyperbolic, and is made with tongue firmly in cheek.
 

D6975

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I've been on hols down Paignton this week and 143 operated services are very much reduced compared to last year. Local stoppers have mostly been 150s, 150001 and 150002 have been regulars. Other services have mostly been pairs of 150/2s, with just one regular 2x143 diagram. I did also see (and ride on) a 150/143 pairing. There was a 158 on the Cardiff, and a couple of HST GTI sets appear in the middle of the day.
 

Chester1

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The latest edition of Rail magazine says that the GA 5 x 153s will be the second set of GA units to leave and that they are going off lease. Maybe Northern should arrange to store them for Porterbrook until the end of the year instead of holding back pacers in case of problems during the Autumn. It would be much less toxic to use 153s than reintroduce pacers.
 

PHILIPE

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I've been on hols down Paignton this week and 143 operated services are very much reduced compared to last year. Local stoppers have mostly been 150s, 150001 and 150002 have been regulars. Other services have mostly been pairs of 150/2s, with just one regular 2x143 diagram. I did also see (and ride on) a 150/143 pairing. There was a 158 on the Cardiff, and a couple of HST GTI sets appear in the middle of the day.

The 143s have been consistent for some years, t same 8 in the allocation and no difference to their work. Anyway we are going off thread now which is about Northern Pacers.
 

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Haven't the Hope Valley stoppers always been the preserve of Newton Heath allocated Pacers? Certainly, the early GMPTE orange units were regular performers in the late eighties/early nineties. I don't believe Sheffield has ever had an official Pacer allocation.

Actually my understanding was that the Hope Valley stoppers were generally worked by heritage units (104s, 108s and latterly 101s after 1992) up until the Summer 2000 time table change, the 101s were the prefered class for the route. After this point there was a reduction in 101 units and they were focused on the Marple/Rose Hill workings (which they already ran anyhow), leaving 142s, 150s and 156s working the New Mills Central and Sheffield diagrams - back in the days of First North Western, I can't speak for after 2004 though.
 

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142046 seems to be very much alive and kicking, it was heading a double 142 set out of Sheffield on Thursday 15th on a Leeds via Bolton on Dearne working. I didn't catch the other unit, was an ex-Northern Spirit refurb though.

So other than 142046, have any other units from the cull list been seen out and about?
 

Killingworth

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Actually my understanding was that the Hope Valley stoppers were generally worked by heritage units (104s, 108s and latterly 101s after 1992) up until the Summer 2000 time table change, the 101s were the prefered class for the route. After this point there was a reduction in 101 units and they were focused on the Marple/Rose Hill workings (which they already ran anyhow), leaving 142s, 150s and 156s working the New Mills Central and Sheffield diagrams - back in the days of First North Western, I can't speak for after 2004 though.

Well my picture is certainly a Pacer and it was in 1985. Maybe we were all there to see a new train on some sort of trial run. I can't recall using one, but on the other hand with the infrequent service I'd not have wanted to. In those days if going north I could park free at the back of Sheffield station (where Supertram now goes) and in 1987 would take a first generation DMU to Leeds.

There it goes, as now the Hope Valley train is delaying the mainline service. The boys' eyes are following it which may suggest it was something special at the time. various015 (1280x845)a.jpg
 

Mat17

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Well my picture is certainly a Pacer and it was in 1985. Maybe we were all there to see a new train on some sort of trial run. I can't recall using one, but on the other hand with the infrequent service I'd not have wanted to. In those days if going north I could park free at the back of Sheffield station (where Supertram now goes) and in 1987 would take a first generation DMU to Leeds.View attachment 67367

Oh yeah, I didn't mean to dispute that fact by saying pacers never worked the service, as your photo shows they certainly did turn up on those workings. I was simply stating that the impression I was given some years ago was that the pacers weren't the preferred traction. I guess in the mid to late 1980s though during the mass withdrawal of first gen units (in the days when some were so bad they had to be hauled dead as coaching stock by whichever loco depots could lay their hands on) I guess it was much more random and as attested to in earlier posts GMPTE 142s certainly worked the route. Of course BR also could shuffle stock around more fluidly than the modern franchised system, put it where needed.

After privatisation though, the general impression I get is the Hope Valley line was a heritage running ground as far as local stoppers are concerned (minus stock shortages etc.)
 

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One question I have always wondered. I know sprinters can be paired up as hybrid units i.e. a class 158 vehicle coupled to a class 156 vehicle to form a 2 car set.

Would it theoretically be possible for a 142 vehicle to be paired up with a 144 vehicle, or a 143 with a 144? I just imagine a 142 + 144 centre + 143, the ultimate pacer? Maybe an idea for preservation? One of each?
 

NorthernSpirit

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I've updated the list, 142046 is no longer listed as withdrawn. Are units 016, 021, 022, 025 and 066 withdrawn or are they in storage or milling about the North in service? As I'm wanting to make sure that this list is correct.


Here's a list.

Red - withdrawn.
Orange - scrapped.
Yellow - converted to other use (does not include food tins or razor blades).
Green - modified for Passengers of Reduced Mobility.
Blue - in storage.
Purple - preserved.


Class 142
001 - set to be preserved
002
003
004
005 - First to be withdrawn
006
007
008 - Scrapped
009
010
011
012
013
014
015
016 - Withdrawn
017
018
019
020
021 - Withdrawn
022 - Withdrawn
023
024
025 - Withdrawn
026
027
028
029
030
031
032
033
034
035
036
037
038
039
040
041
042
043
044
045
046
047
048
049
050
051
052
053
054
055
056
057
058
059 - Scrapped
060
061
062
063
064
065
066 - withdrawn
067
068
069
070
071
072
073
074
075
076
077
078
079
080
081
082
083
084
085
086
087
088
089
090
091
092
093
094
095
096

Class 143

601
602
603
604
605
606
607
608
609
610
611
612
613 - Scrapped
614
615 - Scrapped
616
617
618
619
620
621
622
623
624
625

Class 144 - All units stabled at Neville Hill.
001
002
003
004
005
006
007
008
009
010
011
012 - 144 Evolution has full PRM modifications.
013
014
015
016
017
018
019
020
021
022
023


I'll try and keep the list updated.
 

Neptune

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One question I have always wondered. I know sprinters can be paired up as hybrid units i.e. a class 158 vehicle coupled to a class 156 vehicle to form a 2 car set.

Would it theoretically be possible for a 142 vehicle to be paired up with a 144 vehicle, or a 143 with a 144? I just imagine a 142 + 144 centre + 143, the ultimate pacer? Maybe an idea for preservation? One of each?
Around the time when 142059 was written off 144017 was badly damaged in a shunt move at Skipton. At the time there was a plan to pair the less damaged vehicle from the 142 (which was stored at Newton Heath for a while) with the 2 less damaged vehicles from the 144. In the event the 144 was repaired and the 142 vehicle was scrapped. So in answer yes, it is possible with a pacer.
 

sprinterguy

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Well my picture is certainly a Pacer and it was in 1985. Maybe we were all there to see a new train on some sort of trial run. I can't recall using one, but on the other hand with the infrequent service I'd not have wanted to. In those days if going north I could park free at the back of Sheffield station (where Supertram now goes) and in 1987 would take a first generation DMU to Leeds.

There it goes, as now the Hope Valley train is delaying the mainline service. The boys' eyes are following it which may suggest it was something special at the time. View attachment 67367
After all the speculation that is indeed a West Country 'Skipper' unit: So 142020 is probably the correct identification. Unusual to see it on a Hope Valley service so early in its life.
 

Rikki Lamb

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Well my picture is certainly a Pacer and it was in 1985. Maybe we were all there to see a new train on some sort of trial run. I can't recall using one, but on the other hand with the infrequent service I'd not have wanted to. In those days if going north I could park free at the back of Sheffield station (where Supertram now goes) and in 1987 would take a first generation DMU to Leeds.

There it goes, as now the Hope Valley train is delaying the mainline service. The boys' eyes are following it which may suggest it was something special at the time. View attachment 67367


The skipper is in it's own right is attention grabbing but for me not as much as the class 111 DMU, I didn't think they'd have worked the Hope Valley lines.
 

Mat17

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Slightly OT, but to answer your question. The Class 111 is on the main line not the Hope Valley line (the latter is the single track occupied by the pacer on the left). I can only assume the Met-Cam has come from either Derby or Nottingham (or even just Chesterfield) - not sure what 'local' services ran in those days from those locations though.

I think generally Hope Valley services were worked by LO sets (or NH), rather than NL sets (happy to be disproved though!). Although, take nothing for granted, some LN based 114s found their way to New Mills Central workings. So anything is possible.
 
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