REALTRACK models announce Class 143 and Class 144

[DRS Crewe On A Mission]

1 hour ago, Connor43002 said:

Very pleased with this announcement! Defo getting an example in both GWR and FGW to join my fleet , may even get two GWR ones to double them up! 

 

It really is, especially for anyone like me who missed the first batch because they wasn't aware of them been produced, it gives those like me a second chance to buy, and now with the GWR Green thrown into the mix too. Very pleased. 

[adb968008]

On 14/12/2019 at 02:03, JDW said:

 

That's probably a good general guide, I'm sure people will pop up with pictures of other or unusual combinations (at least I hope they will, not to prove you wrong, just for the interest value!). 

I forgot I have seen a 141+142 pair afterall. I have a picture somewhere but cannot lay my hands on it, so instead I will post an URL of someone elses..

 

of all places to see a 141+142 combination, it was at Inverness.
 

(Flickr url -not mine)

 I saw these pair inside Lochgorm works, Despite reassurances they were only there for repair, the manager told us the drivers were extremely uneasy about seeing them, to the point of contacting the union and were threatening action.

They were repaired and quickly sent south never to return, to chargrin of the works management who were shy of work to do.

 

 

[mdvle]

On 16/12/2019 at 18:10, Les1952 said:

Just for the record as the new accessibility regulations kick in on January 1st, after that date all surviving Pacers will have to run paired with something that is classed as accessible.

 

This applies to FGW and Northern that I know of.  Their Pacers should have been withdrawn by December 31st but the cascaded replacements are late arriving.  So some interesting peak hour pairings to look out for (and model?) over the next few months.

 

As reported elsewhere they various TOCs have gotten extensions to the deadline given the amount of stock that is non-compliant still being required on a daily basis.

 

Also being reported effective Feb 1st replacement buses will need to be compliant.

[royaloak]

4 hours ago, mdvle said:

Also being reported effective Feb 1st replacement buses will need to be compliant.

So instead f getting a nice coach it will be service buses, brilliant.

[Les1952]

3 hours ago, royaloak said:

So instead f getting a nice coach it will be service buses, brilliant.

Not necessarily - a nice modern coach with a wheelchair lift either on the emergency exit or at the entrance.

And I suspect it would be one vehicle per departure - so one accessible plus one other would make the departure compliant if two vehicles are needed.

 

Les

[charliepetty]

19 hours ago, Les1952 said:

Not necessarily - a nice modern coach with a wheelchair lift either on the emergency exit or at the entrance.

And I suspect it would be one vehicle per departure - so one accessible plus one other would make the departure compliant if two vehicles are needed.

 

Les

The crazy thing with all this is Northern are short of rolling stock, two car 195s are replacing 158s with less seats!!  They are very overcrowded in the rush hour and now they have to couple Non compliant stock to a compliant unit.

 

Scene this week in Leeds.   2 Car 144 (Non Compliant) + Single 153 (Compliant) going to Selby rammed full of passengers in the rush hour, people were left behind for ONE HOUR for the next stopping train, 15 minutes into there journey the pass Gascoign Wood Sidings which has 8 X Class 142s and 3 x Ex LNER HST Sets stood doing nothing.

 

TransPennine are cancelling trains (one out of four) as the 350's I think are going back to West Midlands Trains, The Mk 5 Stock is still causing problems, what about someone telling Boris Johnson the Class 67s & Mk4s could be used on Cross Country workings, Voyagers on Transpennines and Cross Country workings from Nottingham to Cardiff, Birmingham to Stanstead and 185s could be used by Northern.

 

OR IS THIS A STUPID IDEA,    Charlie

[JDW]

22 hours ago, Les1952 said:

Not necessarily - a nice modern coach with a wheelchair lift either on the emergency exit or at the entrance.

And I suspect it would be one vehicle per departure - so one accessible plus one other would make the departure compliant if two vehicles are needed.

 

Les

 

With apologies for going further off topic, in a nutshell all vehicles on rail replacement should be PSVAR compliant from 1 Jan 2020. But for complicated reasons, the bus industry has lagged behind, and even now there is still debate about whether rail replacement counts, and what counts as compliant. From the coach operators' point of view, specifying wheelchair accessible coaches costs more with little return on investment, there simply aren't enough wheelchair bound passengers wanting to travel on coaches, so operators haven't invested in them. 

 

Buses aren't as easily available, as bus companies tend to buy the number of buses they need to run their services (and a few spare for maintenance etc), and their drivers usually work to domestic not tacho rules, so are not as easy to get hold of or use as coaches. Logically, there should be enough wheelchair capacity to take the same amount of wheelchair users as the train they replace. But that's not what the law says. So now, you have a situation where there aren't enough accessible coaches to go round, derogations needed (same as for Pacers...!), etc. Whether its the bus industry's fault (its been a long time coming, so they knew about it) or governments fault for not being clear on what was and wasn't in scope of the regulations is a whole 'nother debate.

 

In the real world, whenever I've driven or organised rail replacement, there have always been staff on hand to help passengers, and for those in a wheelchair an accessible taxi was organised, and I never saw a problem with that system (not that we saw many wheelchair users anyway). Generally, its a lot easier all round that way, its much less fuss for both the passenger and the staff, as trying to board a wheelchair onto a coach can be quite a faff, take a good five minutes, and hold up other boarding, whereas access into/egress from a taxi is much easier. Of course if by chance we had happened to use a low floor bus on that journey they were welcome to use it.

[JDW]

Also... @charliepetty ...I need a full working pair of chassis for a 143/144 (motor car and decoder car), do you have any available? Essentially everything except seating and body shell, to power my ongoing 141 build.

 

Thanks

[royaloak]

2 hours ago, charliepetty said:

what about someone telling Boris Johnson the Class 67s & Mk4s could be used on Cross Country workings, Voyagers on Transpennines and Cross Country workings from Nottingham to Cardiff, Birmingham to Stanstead and 185s could be used by Northern.

 

OR IS THIS A STUPID IDEA,    Charlie

Who is going to crew these trains?

The existing crews dont sign them (except certain Northern crews signing 185s) and it would probably take a couple of weeks to train each driver or guard so the timescale would be horrendous.

[mdvle]

 

6 hours ago, charliepetty said:

now they have to couple Non compliant stock to a compliant unit.

 

No they don't.  The conditions of the extension as announced by the government is such that they have to attempt to make sure a service has a complaint unit, but if it isn't possible they are allowed to run a non-complaint service.

 

The extensions range from 5 months (Class 142, to the end of the year for the 153/156, with the 144/150/323 in between).

 

6 hours ago, charliepetty said:

Scene this week in Leeds.   2 Car 144 (Non Compliant) + Single 153 (Compliant)

 

Um, my understanding is that the 153's aren't complaint either as they don't have a disabled washroom, hence the reason the 153's are listed in the extension table.

 

6 hours ago, charliepetty said:

going to Selby rammed full of passengers in the rush hour, people were left behind for ONE HOUR for the next stopping train, 15 minutes into there journey the pass Gascoign Wood Sidings which has 8 X Class 142s and 3 x Ex LNER HST Sets stood doing nothing.

 

Northern has no drivers for HSTs, so they don't help.

 

The 142s I would guess have already been replaced by new stock, and if the new stock is in service then there won't be drivers for the parked 142s anyway because the former 142 drivers are driving the new trains.

 

6 hours ago, charliepetty said:

TransPennine are cancelling trains (one out of four) as the 350's I think are going back to West Midlands Trains,

 

Only 5 so far, TPE still has 5.

 

6 hours ago, charliepetty said:

The Mk 5 Stock is still causing problems, what about someone telling Boris Johnson the Class 67s & Mk4s could be used on Cross Country workings, Voyagers on Transpennines and Cross Country workings from Nottingham to Cardiff, Birmingham to Stanstead and185s could be used by Northern.

 

The Mk4s are not available, LNER has not yet released them due to delays in the 80x units arriving (they have only enough 80x units to replace all the HST services so far).  This is why TfW needed extensions on its fleet of Mk2/3 coaches as their Mk4 units aren't even at the refurbishment stage.

 

TPE is keeping the 185s, based on 15 for diversionary routes during track upgrades and the rest if they take the Liverpool-Nottingham route from East Midlands in 2021.

 

So, in short, the problem is that new rolling stock delays means that the planned cascade of equipment is delayed, etc, etc.  Hopefully all finally sorted by the end of 2020.

[Roy Langridge]

5 hours ago, mdvle said:

 

The extensions range from 5 months (Class 142, to the end of the year for the 153/156, with the 144/150/323 in between).

 

 

Um, my understanding is that the 153's aren't complaint either as they don't have a disabled washroom, hence the reason the 153's are listed in the extension table.

 

Some 153s are compliant. Just because they are on the list, it does not mean they are all non-compliant or must be disposed of. 
 

Roy

[charliepetty]

8 hours ago, mdvle said:

 

 

No they don't.  The conditions of the extension as announced by the government is such that they have to attempt to make sure a service has a complaint unit, but if it isn't possible they are allowed to run a non-complaint service.

 

The extensions range from 5 months (Class 142, to the end of the year for the 153/156, with the 144/150/323 in between).

 

 

Um, my understanding is that the 153's aren't complaint either as they don't have a disabled washroom, hence the reason the 153's are listed in the extension table.

 

 

Northern has no drivers for HSTs, so they don't help.

 

The 142s I would guess have already been replaced by new stock, and if the new stock is in service then there won't be drivers for the parked 142s anyway because the former 142 drivers are driving the new trains.

 

 

Only 5 so far, TPE still has 5.

 

 

The Mk4s are not available, LNER has not yet released them due to delays in the 80x units arriving (they have only enough 80x units to replace all the HST services so far).  This is why TfW needed extensions on its fleet of Mk2/3 coaches as their Mk4 units aren't even at the refurbishment stage.

 

TPE is keeping the 185s, based on 15 for diversionary routes during track upgrades and the rest if they take the Liverpool-Nottingham route from East Midlands in 2021.

 

So, in short, the problem is that new rolling stock delays means that the planned cascade of equipment is delayed, etc, etc.  Hopefully all finally sorted by the end of 2020.

So thats OK then, leave it as it is! 

 

HSTs on Cross Country is not a issue.   Use 142s to strengthen trains in the rush hours only should not be an issue,   Voyagers replaced by HSTs put onto more acceptable longer TPE or Northern Services (Or onto Nottingham-Cardiff / Birmingham-Stanstead) rather the overloaded 2 Car 170's.  Northern could have these 2 Car 170's.

 

I believe you can always find a reason why you 'Cannot' do something, but the passengers should be thought about too.

 

Last year I was on a Cross Country two car 170 at Birmingham New Street to Stanstead around teatime, can you imagine IF you had a flight to catch at Stanstead and you had suit cases, this must happen.

 

I am trying to be positive as its not all Northern's or Cross Country's fault, its the system that need changing.  I feel sorry for the train crews.

 

Charlie

 

 

[mdvle]

Given that there was a discussion of modelling Devon on here (with the excellent Realtrack DMUs), note this story about the platforms at Eggesford Station being extended to allow for the Classs 165/166 units that apparently are expected when the rolling stock mess finally gets sorted out.

 

https://www.devonlive.com/news/devon-news/railway-station-platforms-set-extended-3703135

[mdvle]

4 hours ago, charliepetty said:

So thats OK then, leave it as it is! 

 

Nope, see below.

 

4 hours ago, charliepetty said:

HSTs on Cross Country is not a issue.   Use 142s to strengthen trains in the rush hours only should not be an issue,   Voyagers replaced by HSTs put onto more acceptable longer TPE or Northern Services (Or onto Nottingham-Cardiff / Birmingham-Stanstead) rather the overloaded 2 Car 170's.  Northern could have these 2 Car 170's.

 

 

HST on Cross Country, likely an issue, more detail below.

 

More generally, the main issue with your suggestions is DfT - they specify pretty much everything in a franchise agreement including service levels and equipment to be used.  Particularly an issue for franchises like Northern that don't make a profit and rely on a subsidy from London, so there is no money to hire in extra equipment even if the franchise agreement allowed it.  In the case of those 142's, the money saved from no longer leasing them is put towards the lease costs of the new equipment that replaced them...

 

4 hours ago, charliepetty said:

I believe you can always find a reason why you 'Cannot' do something, but the passengers should be thought about too.

 

I fully agree, much more needs to be done - but, it requires more funding from London for the entire rail network and until voters make it a major election issue there is no indication that the current priority (which is to reduce tax money spent on railways) will change.

 

Now the good news (not to get into any specific politics) is that the northern part of England has changed the political (and hence government money) calculation.  By not being a "default vote for party A", but instead being a "this vote is for sale" this means that not only does party B now view this region as worthy of attention and money, but so does party A as they need to try and win back the vote.  So perhaps some long overdue/needed programs and funding will finally appear (and perhaps other parts of the UK can learn from this and stop being "safe" constituencies so they too can force the government to pay attention to their needs as well).

 

4 hours ago, charliepetty said:

Last year I was on a Cross Country two car 170 at Birmingham New Street to Stanstead around teatime, can you imagine IF you had a flight to catch at Stanstead and you had suit cases, this must happen.

 

Learned from other threads on RMweb, Cross Country faces a number of issues that mean simply going for longer trains is not an option (I think it may have been primarily the HS2 thread).

 

Specifically, there are a small number of stations (Birmingham New Street is a key one, Reading is another) that are operating either at capacity or beyond capacity.  What this means is that timetable planners have had to get creative with assigning platforms, and in some cases this means trains share platforms.  And that in turn means that there isn't the platform space to run longer trains on these services.

 

So you cannot replace the voyagers with HSTs because there is no place to stop an HST (unless you kick some other service out of BNS).

 

So Cross Country, as a franchise, will continue to have capacity problems until/unless these handful of stations get dealt with - and being inner city stations that will be extremely expensive.

 

Which is a long way of saying longer trains can be complicated.

 

4 hours ago, charliepetty said:

I am trying to be positive as its not all Northern's or Cross Country's fault, its the system that need changing.  I feel sorry for the train crews.

 

As pointed out elsewhere, Northern and Cross Country are innocent.

 

In the case of Northern, Arriva (as any other Northern franchise winner) does exactly what DfT wants as DfT funds everything on Northern - and Arriva also operates some of the most successful and well like franchises like Chiltern.

 

In the case of Cross Country, they are in limbo as they are effectively between franchises at the moment and thus being operated on a daily basis on behalf of DfT which means any major decision making is waiting for the next franchise bidding process.

[Ramblin Rich]

1 hour ago, mdvle said:

Given that there was a discussion of modelling Devon on here (with the excellent Realtrack DMUs), note this story about the platforms at Eggesford Station being extended to allow for the Classs 165/166 units that apparently are expected when the rolling stock mess finally gets sorted out.

 

https://www.devonlive.com/news/devon-news/railway-station-platforms-set-extended-3703135

Interesting story, but slightly garbled statement:

“The proposal has the following aims. To accommodate diesel multiple unit trains which are longer than the current High Speed Train (HST)"

Err, what...?

 

 

[KeithMacdonald]

11 minutes ago, Ramblin Rich said:

Err, what...?

 

That was my reaction as well. I didn't know they ran HST to Barnstaple. Maybe it's an irregular thing, like this Tarka Special HST?

 

 

[mdvle]

20 minutes ago, Ramblin Rich said:

Interesting story, but slightly garbled statement:

“The proposal has the following aims. To accommodate diesel multiple unit trains which are longer than the current High Speed Train (HST)"

Err, what...?

 

Good catch.  Given that it wasn't the reporter, but rather a quote, I went searching and found the planning documents (*) (note to modellers - site plans and information on other previous planning applications - like turning the former station building into a private dwelling - may provide useful information)

 

Sure enough, it is a direct quote from the Heritage Design Access Statement.

 

But the likely key point is that Eggesford is one of several stations getting longer platforms by Network Rail in this project, the others being Lympstone Commando, Totnes, St. James Park, and Truro.  I would guess Totnes and Truro might be getting longer platforms for the 80x units compared to the HSTs, and this has resulted in some cut/paste fun.

 

 

* - Mid Devon planning application - https://planning.middevon.gov.uk/online-applications/applicationDetails.do?activeTab=documents&keyVal=Q369NLKS03J00

 

If that doesn't survive then just go to the search page and search fore Eggesford - https://planning.middevon.gov.uk/online-applications/

[Ramblin Rich]

4 minutes ago, mdvle said:

 

.........

  I would guess Totnes and Truro might be getting longer platforms for the 80x units compared to the HSTs, and this has resulted in some cut/paste fun.

 

 

* - Mid Devon planning application - https://planning.middevon.gov.uk/online-applications/applicationDetails.do?activeTab=documents&keyVal=Q369NLKS03J00

 

If that doesn't survive then just go to the search page and search fore Eggesford - https://planning.middevon.gov.uk/online-applications/

Good bit of detective work there

 

[mdvle]

On 03/01/2020 at 14:52, charliepetty said:

 Gascoign Wood Sidings which has 8 X Class 142s and 3 x Ex LNER HST Sets stood doing nothing.

 

The ex-LNER HST sets will soon be going to East Midland, replacing the existing EMR HST sets which are not disabled complaint.  East Midland will use the ex-LNER sets until 2022 when their Class 804 trains are supposed to arrive.

[charliepetty]

If you like Class 144s the Keighley & Worth Valley Railway is for you!

 

 

[66738]

11 hours ago, charliepetty said:

If you like Class 144s the Keighley & Worth Valley Railway is for you!

 

 

18 sets in total I believe. I’m sad that I didn’t get to savour my last drive on a 144 (006) last Thursday Huddersfield - Bradford - Huddersfield. The end came more abruptly than any of us ever thought. 
66738

[159220]

Tomorrow (remains to be proven as it’s been promised before) is the last day of the Pacer in Devon. As such, thought to order the upcoming GWR release. But all sold out on the website! Surely not? Do you know can I pick one up on pre-order with a retailer....

[charliepetty]

5 hours ago, 159220 said:

Tomorrow (remains to be proven as it’s been promised before) is the last day of the Pacer in Devon. As such, thought to order the upcoming GWR release. But all sold out on the website! Surely not? Do you know can I pick one up on pre-order with a retailer....

They are not all sold out, as they have not been put on yet for Pre-Orders.

 

A little time yet before they are listed.    Charlie

[Global]

Hi Charlie, just wanted to say that having bought 5 of the excellent Sprinter liveried Class 156s and looking forward to the, no doubt equally impressive, Provincial Class 142s was there any plans to do the Class 144 in as delivered Metro livery at any point?

[charliepetty]

13 hours ago, Global said:

Hi Charlie, just wanted to say that having bought 5 of the excellent Sprinter liveried Class 156s and looking forward to the, no doubt equally impressive, Provincial Class 142s was there any plans to do the Class 144 in as delivered Metro livery at any point?

YES