So many good trains disappearping from the network - pacers, HST’s, 483’s and now these. Really not interested in boring modern trains like Civities and IET’s. I suspect they’ll be fewer rail enthusiasts in future.
As others have said, the railway operates for passengers, not the enthusiast. Some of these classes of trains are finding their way into preservation - if you miss them you can go and see and ride them in such a setting. There will always be enthusiasts - the same conversations were had when the HSTs replaced loco-hauled services, and when diesel replaced steam. The reduction in enthusiasts is largely due to other social trends rather than "old train good, new train bad".
They function perfectly fine. Pacers for example were only taken out of service becuase they didn’t comply with the new disability regulations. But the trains themselves still worked fine. Never had any issues with reliability whenever I used them. Yes they were a bit worn out but plenty of life still left in them.
“Dangerously beyond life expired”. Seriously? The trains I listed still worked fine when taken out of service and there was nothing dangerous about them. Far more dangerous to drive a car than ride on a pacer.
Pacers, the Metrocars and HSTs have (in some cases proven in accidents) substantially worse crash resistance than newer vehicles.
Pacers were only forced out of service due to the accessibility regs, but were not fit for purpose in general. They were loud, draughty and generally uncomfortable. They were also not all that reliable - I used to commute on a route operated by Pacers daily, and there were regular issues. Not a single week went by without a service being terminated/cancelled due to unit failure, the fitters having to try and fix an issue partway through the route, or a unit swap en route being needed. The reason they are still around is that the ROSCOs were happy to sweat their assets, and the government were very specific in that certain previous franchises were to be "no growth" or to not use equipment from certain manufacturers.
The class 483s were absolutely not fine when withdrawn from service - they had already had to cannibalise part of the fleet to keep some units going, and the gradual reduction in service provision and reliability on Island Line since the 90s shows this. Look at the passenger figures for Island Line over the last 15 years; the picture tells a very sad story.
Well it’s been a few years since I last traveled on one but they were fine then. And are still fine now based on YouTube videos I have seen.
This shows from your comments - if you relied on Metro you'd think very differently, specifically along the lines of the fact that this fleet should have been replaced 10-15 years ago. They ride rough, they are too hot in summer and freezing in winter, they leak whenever it rains, they break down at the slightest problem - they are also slow by modern standards. Regular passengers come first, not those who have the rail enthusiasm or are travelling with a red pen.