ChrisHogan
Member
- Joined
- 15 Jan 2016
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- 342
There were the regular workings of 156s to Portsmouth Harbour from November 1988 for several months on the Cardiff services. The fairly newly introduced 155s had had door problems but when one opened whilst in passenger service the whole fleet was grounded. This happened on a Friday afternoon and as a result a batch of brand new 156s on the way to Scotland from the factory were diverted to Canton and over the weekend crash conversion courses were held for Cardiff crews to enable them to start working the Portsmouth services on the Monday. In all, 25 x 156s were loaned to Canton to cover the 155 duties which saw them working to Manchester, Birmingham and the West of England.
It was rather more than one incident. By the time BR HQ was finally convinced to take the 155s out of service, there were at least six sets impounded at Canton "no fault found" after door open incidents.