swt_passenger
Veteran Member
- Joined
- 7 Apr 2010
- Messages
- 31,527
If I remember correctly the 165s and 166s are slightly bigger than other units loading guage wise. When they leave the Paddington services it is being suggested on other threads that they will be hard to fit in elsewhere...
They won't be 'hard to fit in' elsewhere at all IMHO. The suggestions on other threads are perpetuating the myth that they are significantly larger, which is really not the case. As you may already be aware, (as part of the Reading blockade pre-requisites a few years ago), they were cleared from Redhill to Selhurst, and from Guildford to Basingstoke via Woking, without any known infrastructure changes being made.
There are specific plans to use them on FGW services centred on Bristol, including Portsmouth to Cardiff, these were repeated in the CP5 enhancements draft that came out in December, that include use on the following routes:
West of England Diesel Multiple Unit capability works
Network Rail has assumed that the cascaded Class 165 and 166 units will operate over the
following parts of the Western, Wales and Wessex Routes:
Core routes:
o Cardiff - Bristol - Exeter Penzance (including Weston-super-Mare)
o Bristol to Portsmouth
o Westbury to Weymouth
o Bristol to Worcester (including Gloucester)
o Bristol to Severn Beach
o Swindon to Gloucester
o Swindon to Westbury
Diversionary routes
o Bristol to Parkway via Avonmouth
o Castle Cary to Exeter
o Castle Cary to Exeter via Yeovil
o Romsey to Fareham via Eastleigh