I’d love for a situation where class 195s are so far down the Northern pecking order that they are only used on rural routes. When will that be, two franchises after this one?
Two franchises at ~10 years a piece, then they'd be getting on for 20-30 years old. I guess that'd be a reasonable age for them to be considered "bottom-of-barrel" stock.
I guess it depends on the definition of rural routes. I gave an example of three Northern Connect routes which would be suitable for battery power. Northern and its successors will need more stock to replace all the sprinters in the next 15 years. At that point the 195s will be less than half way through their usable life. The business case for new build DMUs longer than 2 or 3 coaches is very poor.