Only if it can't get a location via GPS for whatever reason.
They aren’t too long for Kirkby. The Wigan platform, being the original one is longer than the 1970s built Liverpool platform!
Do you mean guard rather than driver?
Pairs of 150s just fit behind the fence at the Wigan end, as soon as you have a 156 in the consist officially it's LTSP at Kirkby.
Yes.
A huge improvement
All the 195 2 cars have been fitted with moquette now, there are only 5 of the 3 cars left to fit.
In the early 00's during the NWT/FNW days.
Are their new cushions then ?
But only one replaced the seats on 150s. I forget which. The other didn’t, but it replaced the seats on 156s with Richmond seating.
NWT and FNW were the same company. The other (that became the Eastern half of Northern) was Northern Spirit, later Arriva Trains Northern. They didn't have many 150s, but the ones they had didn't even get relivieried until (Serco-Abellio) Northern days, let alone an interior refurbishment.
So did these Northern Spirit 150s continue to run in BR livery until long after the millennium?
My memory tells me so (disclaimer: I'm now 40 and didn't live in the North during the early 2000s). I think we've had threads before about the longest-surviving BR liveries (not including nostalgic repaints) and I believe 150s and 153s were among the last units to receive a private operator livery.
The cushions are still new anyway. It’s just that extra few millimetres of moquette and the surface being soft that makes the difference.
Why would that be? The 150s weren’t even particularly old then. They needn’t have made the effort though when the original livery was so much better.
It never seemed to be a priority. Northern Spirit launched their brand with the green livery that 142s and 156s got; and the magenta and gold TPE variant that 158s got. They didn't last all that long before collapsing and being rescued by Arriva, so none of the other classes got Northern Spirit colours other than the 333s which were delivered in a West Yorkshire variation of it. Presumably the 150s didn't require repainting before then, but it did help contribute to the variety of liveries of Northern's fleet when the united Northern franchise was created.
Yes it was the 1502s with Regional Railways branding on the side with BR Livery. Also for interest a few class 156s also retained the livery with Super Sprinter on the side. With a few Heaton based ones being the said units.
The 1502s that transferred over from the Valley Lines in swap of the 142s in Regional Railways livery that went over in exchange.
Who is footing the bill for all of this? Manufacturer of cloth on basis the flat cloth didn’t stand up to the job contrary to their claims, manufacturer of the trains for not catching the problem, or the DfT (so us) as operator because Arriva picked the wrong cloth but don’t run the franchise any more?
In theory it doesn’t matter because the “flat cloth” (the use of which constituted the torture of passengers - I cannot emphasise enough that it was AWFUL) had already become life expired well over 12 months before it started to be replaced with very suitable and also quite pleasant moquette. It is likely the DfT paying but I am more than happy with the upgrade regardless of its funding arrangements and I doubt the manufacturer of such a poor quality cloth as for it to be a torture instrument would have sold it with a warranty lasting more than about 2 weeks. It appears to have been an almost perfect scam when it was ordered and the use of this material and company should be banned at once.
Why should the company be banned? They will have supplied what they were contracted to supply - the issue is with TOCs who persistently specify such low grade materials and often don’t learn the lesson (e.g. Souther/GTR and GWR with their recurring use of astroturf). At least in this case Northern have learned the lesson, it seems.
The problem is inherently low specification train interiors being not fit for purpose, often combined with primitive foreign suspension arrangements which are unsuitable for our infrastructure. Note the contrast with recent high specification bus interiors, many specified by the same companies as trains, some with incredibly luxurious leather seats which still make for an uncomfortable journey thanks to pot holes on the roads!
Unsafe? We're talking about what sort of cloth covers seats here- not dodgy wiring or leaky fuel systems.
