RobShipway
Established Member
- Joined
- 20 Sep 2009
- Messages
- 3,337
Okay, it looks from thread https://railforums.co.uk/threads/southern-class-313-twilight.231486/ that the Southern Class 313 units will be withdrawn in December.
At the moment Southern is awaiting class 377 units to come from Southern Eastern, who in turn are awaiting the delayed class 707 units to come from SWR.
As I posted in the above thread, I can see many Coastway services come December being cancelled due to lack of stock and replaced for a few months by bus replacement services, as I don't suppose that the DFT will extend again the ability for the class 313's to be used into 2023. The question then is can stock temporarily be brought in from somewhere to replace the class 313 units until the class 377 units arrive?
I know there is some surplus class 387 Gatwick Express units, but I am not sure there is enough of those to replace all class 313's on Coastway services. Does Great Northern have any surplus class 387 stock? But I will post further questions on this in the Speculation Discussion area.
Could the following occur if only temporarily, which is that Great Northern hire in 19 class 379 units to replace 19 of their class 387 units and those units replace say 19 of the class 377/3 units, which then are used to work the coastway services?
If the answer is to just provide replacement bus services, then with the strike action going on over the next few months I can see Southern along with many other operators in the country losing passengers to local bus services, using their car or alternatively permanently working from home if possible so that they do not have the issues with having to travel. This could mean, that we have just as many branch lines closing as there was in the time of Beeching.
Long term I think that Southern need to think about what to use on the Coastway lines in the future, whether it is something link class 484 being dedicated units for the Coastway routes or have tri - mode/bimode Stadler flirt trains that can be used on diesel/battery power where it could be used to replace the class 171 units on Uckfield and Ashford services, but also have the capability to run either AC OHLE or DC 3rd rail so could be used on Cosstway services.
At the moment Southern is awaiting class 377 units to come from Southern Eastern, who in turn are awaiting the delayed class 707 units to come from SWR.
As I posted in the above thread, I can see many Coastway services come December being cancelled due to lack of stock and replaced for a few months by bus replacement services, as I don't suppose that the DFT will extend again the ability for the class 313's to be used into 2023. The question then is can stock temporarily be brought in from somewhere to replace the class 313 units until the class 377 units arrive?
I know there is some surplus class 387 Gatwick Express units, but I am not sure there is enough of those to replace all class 313's on Coastway services. Does Great Northern have any surplus class 387 stock? But I will post further questions on this in the Speculation Discussion area.
Could the following occur if only temporarily, which is that Great Northern hire in 19 class 379 units to replace 19 of their class 387 units and those units replace say 19 of the class 377/3 units, which then are used to work the coastway services?
If the answer is to just provide replacement bus services, then with the strike action going on over the next few months I can see Southern along with many other operators in the country losing passengers to local bus services, using their car or alternatively permanently working from home if possible so that they do not have the issues with having to travel. This could mean, that we have just as many branch lines closing as there was in the time of Beeching.
Long term I think that Southern need to think about what to use on the Coastway lines in the future, whether it is something link class 484 being dedicated units for the Coastway routes or have tri - mode/bimode Stadler flirt trains that can be used on diesel/battery power where it could be used to replace the class 171 units on Uckfield and Ashford services, but also have the capability to run either AC OHLE or DC 3rd rail so could be used on Cosstway services.