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Northern 323s refurbishment and cascade

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156420

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A 323, do you mean? I see that the unit which is scheduled to stable in Picc P12 overnight goes on to do 0446 Airport - Blackpool North. Surely there's no immediate plan to run 323s on Blackpools?
If the unit departing Lime Street at 2330 really did need to be a 323, I could see some sense in sending one from Allerton, since I believe that, up to now, 323s haven't operated Chat Moss stoppers on Sundays.
Not that I'd be particularly convinced that there wouldn't be some other satisfactory arrangement, of course.

Yes a 323 on the 2330.

That will be a 331 for the 0346 Picc-Airport/0446 Airport-Blackpool.

There will be 2 323 diagrams out on the Chat Moss stoppers Liverpool-Wilmslow on a Sunday too.
 
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Bovverboy

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Yes a 323 on the 2330.

That will be a 331 for the 0346 Picc-Airport/0446 Airport-Blackpool.

But how does a 323, which does 2330 LIV - MIA, and then presumably 0117 MIA - MAN ECS, suddenly turn into a 331 before doing 0346 MAN - MIA?
 

156420

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But how does a 323, which does 2330 LIV - MIA, and then presumably 0117 MIA - MAN ECS, suddenly turn into a 331 before doing 0346 MAN - MIA?

It doesn’t that’s my point, I thought you’d connected the two workings together.

The 323 which stables does the Hadfields the next day.
 

Bovverboy

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4 overnight, The excursion platform is needed for TPE from the new timetable. Its purely for stabling, all the heavy works being covered on visits to Allerton, minus cleaning and watering.

Then how come, from 16/12, they're covering six diagrams (Mon-Sat)?

I'm not now sure how many diagrams they're covering. A couple of the diagrams which I thought were being covered from Ardwick may be being covered by units which stable overnight at Piccadilly. When a unit runs into a platform which already has something stabled, it can be quite impossible to tell on RTT whether they couple together or not. So you may be right about four 323s stabling at Ardwick.
 

Bovverboy

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But how does a 323, which does 2330 LIV - MIA, and then presumably 0117 MIA - MAN ECS, suddenly turn into a 331 before doing 0346 MAN - MIA?

It doesn’t that’s my point, I thought you’d connected the two workings together.

The 323 which stables does the Hadfields the next day.

It's not following through on RTT. The 323 ex Allerton (according to RTT) subsequently stables in P12 at Picc, but all the early Hadfields depart P2 or P3.
 

CHAPS2034

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It's not following through on RTT. The 323 ex Allerton (according to RTT) subsequently stables in P12 at Picc, but all the early Hadfields depart P2 or P3.

From a casual observation of this thread, I think 156420 is a more reliable source than someone relying entirely on RTT.
 

156420

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It's not following through on RTT. The 323 ex Allerton (according to RTT) subsequently stables in P12 at Picc, but all the early Hadfields depart P2 or P3.
From a casual observation of this thread, I think 156420 is a more reliable source than someone relying entirely on RTT.
Precisely. RTT isn't gospel and never has been.

Apologies all, I looked at the cycle wrong.

AN103 on a Sunday (23+07 off Allerton) which finishes Man Piccadilly Monday morning works AN102 on a Monday (of course swaps can happen but this is the correct diagram cycle).

AN102 Monday Only- starts at Picc as 5H89 empty to Macclesfield. Tuesday to Saturday 102 job starts from Stoke.

Of course the platform continuity on RTT regarding this is still incorrect anyway!

Hope this helps and apologies for the mistake earlier.
 

tonywalk

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Hi there, my first post, though have probably read varying threads over the years.

I live "on" the Hadfield/Glossop line and have been a user of the line for the 33 years I have lived here. I've seen 303s (brilliant and fast but unreliable - prob. age related), 304s (meh - but a stop-gap), 305s (ex-Network South-East and quite nice), and for the past 20-odd years, 323s.

I've quite enjoyed the 323s - there's a few minor design faults, but on the whole, they're great.

Until now. Northern have had them ruined. I don't know how many are in service, but I've been on 323234 and 323238. Here is my list of issues:

  1. Hard seats particularly the backrest. I've had three journeys now on the trains and had backache late into the evening - still got it now after this evening's journey (16:28 from MAN).
  2. Overly dark windows - can't see any location features en-route or at stations out of the carriage windows at night. When the tannoy is inaudible and the LCD display not showing next station name it leads to panic over where you are. I missed my station last Friday, on only the second trip on one of the refurbished trains. The tinted windows on the pre-refurbs are dark but you could just about see stuff out of them.
  3. Door beepers too loud. They're terrifying.
  4. LCD display pointless. Doesn't show what you need to know, when you need to know it.
  5. Train ride quality appears to have been interfered with. The trains that haven't been touched have a much smoother ride.Jiggles about like the refurb. 319s.
  6. The "twos" seats are not set opposite each other like the "threes" seats. This leads to very obtrusive in-your-face talking and seat departures from certain of the adjacent aisle seats.
I have to use these to get to work every day, and as they are, the refurbished units are unacceptable and I will be making a formal complaint about them.

If you've got this far, thank you for reading through.

Regards,
Tony.
 

IamTrainsYT

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323234 at broadbottom on 17/11/19
Here is a video, looks very smart!
image0.jpg
 

Bovverboy

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4 overnight, The excursion platform is needed for TPE from the new timetable. Its purely for stabling, all the heavy works being covered on visits to Allerton, minus cleaning and watering.

Then how come, from 16/12, they're covering six diagrams (Mon-Sat)?

I'm not now sure how many diagrams they're covering. A couple of the diagrams which I thought were being covered from Ardwick may be being covered by units which stable overnight at Piccadilly. When a unit runs into a platform which already has something stabled, it can be quite impossible to tell on RTT whether they couple together or not. So you may be right about four 323s stabling at Ardwick.

It would appear that it is six 323s which stable at Ardwick overnight after all.
 

CJ

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Refurbished 323226 now in passenger service, on the Liverpool Lime Street - Crewe run.
 

py_megapixel

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I thought I'd make a list of all of the units and their current refurbishment status. If someone can let me know which 323s are at Wolverton I'll add those too.

This list may be out of date.

Unrefurbished: Units with debranded Serco-Abellio Northern interiors and livery 12
Partially Refurbished: Units which have received new seat covers, an interior/exterior repaint, and PRM mods 74
Fully Refurbished: Units which have received all the above plus new door controls and LED lighting 83
Under Refurbishment: Units which are at Wolverton for refurbishment 33
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
323 223 - Unrefurbished

323 224 - Unrefurbished
323 225 - Unrefurbished
323 226 - Partially Refurbished
323 227 - Unrefurbished
323 228 - Unrefurbished
323 229 - Unrefurbished
323 230 - Unrefurbished
323 231 - Unrefurbished

323 232 - Unrefurbished
323 233 - Unrefurbished
323 234 - Partially Refurbished
323 235 - Unrefurbished
323 236 - Unrefurbished
323 237 - Unrefurbished
323 238 - Partially Refurbished
323 239 - Unrefurbished
 
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Energy

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I doubt we will see any fully refurbished ones for a while, currently Northern are getting the fleet PRM compliant and installing plug points and WiFi later.
 

CR165022

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I thought I'd make a list of all of the units and their current refurbishment status. If someone can let me know which 323s are at Wolverton I'll add those too.

This list may be out of date.

Unrefurbished: Units with debranded Serco-Abellio Northern interiors and livery 12
Partially Refurbished: Units which have received new seat covers, an interior/exterior repaint, and PRM mods 74
Fully Refurbished: Units which have received all the above plus new door controls and LED lighting 83
Under Refurbishment: Units which are at Wolverton for refurbishment 33
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
323 223 - Unrefurbished

323 224 - Unrefurbished
323 225 - Unrefurbished
323 226 - Partially Refurbished
323 227 - Unrefurbished
323 228 - Unrefurbished
323 229 - Unrefurbished
323 230 - Unrefurbished
323 231 - Unrefurbished

323 232 - Unrefurbished
323 233 - Unrefurbished
323 234 - Partially Refurbished
323 235 - Unrefurbished
323 236 - Unrefurbished
323 237 - Unrefurbished
323 238 - Partially Refurbished
323 239 - Unrefurbished
Because the majority of the fleet isn't PRM compliant, what will happen when when 2020 starts, will un PRM units have to be coupled to PRM units? If that's the case, there's less PRM units than un PRM units.
 

Energy

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Because the majority of the fleet isn't PRM compliant, what will happen when when 2020 starts, will un PRM units have to be coupled to PRM units? If that's the case, there's less PRM units than un PRM units.
They will probably ask for an extention from the DfT
 

D365

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The painted cluster headlights makes quite a difference to the overall appearance.
 

setdown

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So the Class 142’s are banned from working without being attached to a unit with accessibility modifications. Is the same not the case for the class 323’s? Why one but not the other?
 

jonesy3001

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So the Class 142’s are banned from working without being attached to a unit with accessibility modifications. Is the same not the case for the class 323’s? Why one but not the other?

Last minute decision with the TOC and the daft as they were supposed to leave northern but was decided to keep the 323s as well as getting the 26 from WMT and get rid of the 319s as they were getting unreliable and breaking down.
 

Bovverboy

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So the Class 142’s are banned from working without being attached to a unit with accessibility modifications. Is the same not the case for the class 323’s? Why one but not the other?

Last minute decision with the TOC and the daft as they were supposed to leave northern

That doesn't in any way answer setdown's questions, but an obvious answer would be that it wouldn't be easy for 323s to run attached to a PRM-compliant unit. They could only be attached to a compliant 323, there are only four of those, and the routes which use six-car sets aren't currently 323-operated anyway. A 142 can run attached to a 150 or 156, and there are lots of four-car Pacer/Sprinter diagrams.

but was decided to keep the 323s as well as getting the 26 from WMT

The last we heard Northern was going to get only 17 of the WMT 323s.

and get rid of the 319s as they were getting unreliable and breaking down.

It wouldn't have occurred to me to say that the 319s were 'getting' unreliable and breaking down, if anything I would have said that they've settled down quite a bit in recent times. When they arrived at first they seemed dreadful for such as door faults.
 

156420

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It wouldn't have occurred to me to say that the 319s were 'getting' unreliable and breaking down, if anything I would have said that they've settled down quite a bit in recent times. When they arrived at first they seemed dreadful for such as door faults.

Definitely agreed, they’ve improved a lot over the last 12 months I’d say.

There’s still the usual faults, doors, traction motor flashovers/motor faults etc.

One of the worst has gone - 374. This had a common history of getting severe WSP on a dry rail.
 

mic505

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Lol the 323's hardly have these faults,though. Hence reliable. 323's are cheaper to lease, easier to drive (from a drivers point of view), easy access to drivers cab from the platform, better comfort and driver visibilty, better acceleration and have more seats then the 319's and 331's when coupled as a 6-car unit.
 
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