150s on the West Coast Mainline

[WCML]

Was on the LM rattler going down to Euston this morning (26/06) and just after it pulled into Rugby at 10:19, 150 107 pulled alongside it in the next platform. What on earth was that doing down there?

I thought LM had retained a couple of 150s that I see regularly on Birmingham - Hereford runs, but not on the WCML?

 

[fgwrich]

Out of the 3 150s London Midland still retain, one still spends a week working out of Bletchley on the Marston Vale (Bletchley to Bedford) line, so most likely you'd have seen the change over unit at rugby - One unit heading down to Bletchley, swapping with the other 150 heading back to Tysley.

 

[MK Tom]

I've seen 153s maxing themselves out on the WCML for the same reason.

As an interesting aside I don't know if anyone remembers the time all of Silverlink's 321s had to be withdrawn for a few days... You ended up with trains of 3x150 working all-station stoppers from Euston to Northampton! That was a different experience... 313s up this far north was another oddity of that event.

 

[87015]

As an interesting aside I don't know if anyone remembers the time all of Silverlink's 321s had to be withdrawn for a few days... You ended up with trains of 3x150 working all-station stoppers from Euston to Northampton! That was a different experience... 313s up this far north was another oddity of that event.

Did 313s definately work to Northampton during that riot? I didn't get one north of the Keynes - there was some can (245?) and a Mk2 set doing Bletchley-Northampton with the 313s/150 on Watford-M.Keynes shuttles. Was good to get a 313 off Leighton - certainly didn't think I'd have a Hornsey one on the WCML!

The 4x2 car 150 booked to work the 2036 Birmingham-Euston on Saturday nights for a while was a bit of a beast aswell as it attempted to keep 100mph timings - it didn't last too long as they realised the Sunday AM loadings didn't need 4 cars and they could cover that with BY units so didn't need to bring the TS ones down.

 

[DarloRich]

The Marston Vale set swaps have been all over the place these last few weeks as reliability has been a bit low for both the 150 and the 153.

Seeing the 153 hammering north the other Friday was fun! She cannae take much more of this captain! The Di-Lythiam crystals are degrading!