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GMPTE never wanted Pacers in the first place

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pemma

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I've just been reading something that's been written about Pacers and it says, quoting Stanley Hall’s book ‘Rail Centres: Manchester’, that GMPTE saw class 210s which could be made to run on diesel, OHE and 3rd rail as the ideal replacement for all 1st generation DMUs in the area. This is because it would have allowed one type of train to be used on all local services and allowed for any future electrification without having diesels surplus to requirements.

It goes on to say that while WYPTE were happy ordering 141s, GMPTE were forced in to taking on a mixture of 142s and 150s by the Thatcher government.
 
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Lampshade

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Ahh, I read about this, the idea they could run on AC power out to Stoke/Crewe and then on diesel on the Oldham/Wigan lines.

1 mass order of 210s vs orders of 141/142/144/150/155/156/323? Ahh yes, because 'forward planning' doesn't exist on the railways.
 

pemma

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1 mass order of 210s vs orders of 141/142/144/150/155/156/323? Ahh yes, because 'forward planning' doesn't exist on the railways.

I don't think it would have ruled out Pacers in the Northern area altogether. West Yorkshire didn't exactly have a lot of use for dual powered units in the 1980s and rural lines in Cumbria and Northumberland would have been very likely to see Pacers anyway.

I wonder if 210s had been ordered for the North West, whether we would have seen a dual powered unit running TPE services instead of 156s and 158s.
 

WatcherZero

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I think they were inveitable as long long as people at BR continued to believe they could spend a large amount of money on rolling stock that they would only keep for a short amount of time. Any sane person would see the assets would end up being squuezed to their maximum potential. You dont throw out good milk.
 

jopsuk

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Not convinced that 210s would have been ideal for everything, but certainly, a load more 15x (mainly 150, perhaps a mix with 151s as well) rather than the 14x would have been good had the money been there. It wasn't.
 

pemma

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Not convinced that 210s would have been ideal for everything, but certainly, a load more 15x (mainly 150, perhaps a mix with 151s as well) rather than the 14x would have been good had the money been there. It wasn't.

Yes money was in short supply. However, the question is why Centro were treated differently to GMPTE. I imagine Centro may have wanted class 210s as well but they weren't forced to take on Pacers.

The 151 was apparently better but the prototypes were delivered later so the 150 had already gone in to production.

If Pacers were really intended for the low usage rural lines there should have been some ordered for areas like Norfolk and various parts of Scotland, which managed to stay Pacer free.
 

Helvellyn

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Yes money was in short supply. However, the question is why Centro were treated differently to GMPTE. I imagine Centro may have wanted class 210s as well but they weren't forced to take on Pacers.

The 151 was apparently better but the prototypes were delivered later so the 150 had already gone in to production.

If Pacers were really intended for the low usage rural lines there should have been some ordered for areas like Norfolk and various parts of Scotland, which managed to stay Pacer free.
I don't know the ins and outs, but the Class 150/1s were originally used on some quite long distance runs when based at DY. As the Class 156s and then the Class 158s arrived the 150/1 fleet was cascaded - 32 ended up at TS and 18 at NH. The units for Centro thus arrived in the late 1980s, and users in the West Midlands kept their first generation DMUs for quite a while.

Not sure why East Anglia never saw Pacers, but in Scotland there weren't really any short branch line type routes that would have suited them. Many of the routes that Class 156 units were introduced on had previously been loco-hauled. Some Edinburgh suburban routes got Class 150s, but maybe by then the Pacers had been discredited enough that no more builds followed on.
 

pemma

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but in Scotland there weren't really any short branch line type routes that would have suited them.

Except for most of the services Scotrail now use 156s, 158s and 170s on are just as much Pacer routes as those in the North of England that actually see Pacers.

There are hardly any short rural lines in the North of England, unlike in the South West. The real branch lines in the North only see parliamentary services or were closed a long time ago. Some of the Pacer routes in the far north of England are rural but these can have total journey times of up to 3 hours.

I really wish Pacers were restricted to the short branch line type routes like the Avocet line.
 

TheBigD

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When Edinburgh to Bathgate reopened it was briefly worked by 143 units from Heaton.
 

Blindtraveler

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Nowhere near enough to a Pacer :(
When Edinburgh to Bathgate reopened it was briefly worked by 143 units from Heaton.



and I would have loved to have bashed it!
If manchester want rid of there pacers than im sure a home could be found for them here, infact Id personally welcome it! Id put them on daytime, not peak fife circle, shots line, motherwell Cumbernauld, pasly canalle etc but retain 156s/8s/170s in the peaks.
 

A0wen

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I don't know the ins and outs, but the Class 150/1s were originally used on some quite long distance runs when based at DY. As the Class 156s and then the Class 158s arrived the 150/1 fleet was cascaded - 32 ended up at TS and 18 at NH. The units for Centro thus arrived in the late 1980s, and users in the West Midlands kept their first generation DMUs for quite a while.

Not sure why East Anglia never saw Pacers, but in Scotland there weren't really any short branch line type routes that would have suited them. Many of the routes that Class 156 units were introduced on had previously been loco-hauled. Some Edinburgh suburban routes got Class 150s, but maybe by then the Pacers had been discredited enough that no more builds followed on.

I suspect East Anglia didn't get Pacers as they had a number of refurbed Class 101 DMUs already so they didn't have 'life expired' DMUs to off load. The 101s had been made surplus by electrification e.g. Royston / Bishops Stortford - Cambridge, Hitchin - Huntingdon, Manningtree - Ipswich / Norwich.

I suspect there's also an element of the type of workings they get, where a unit from Norwich could conceivably have been doing a Norwich - Birmingham turn one day and East Suffolk line the next - a Cl156 could do either.
 
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