Class 142 Pacers miss matched

[pendlerail]

Some 158/156 hybrids did run in the northwest due to track circuits, don't think it lasted long as I recall

[John M Upton]

I recall that when Wessex Trains/FGW/GWR ran three car 158's made up of two car ones with a car from another two car shoved on, that an adaptor plate had to be made and fitted because of the difference between inner corridor connections and cab outer ones.

[GordonC]

19 hours ago, pendlerail said:

Some 158/156 hybrids did run in the northwest due to track circuits, don't think it lasted long as I recall

 

Was it not something about 158s having disk brakes and not clearing the leaf mulch build up on the wheelsets well and therefore not being properly detected on track circuits where 156s having tread brakes were ok so they paired up some hybrids for a while

[w124bob]

I was based at Manchester Victoria from when the Pacers were almost new to 2002, Newton Heath never mixed and matched. At one time it was possible to see 5 or 6 different liveries together,pale blue, GMPTE orange, new GMPTE white black and red, Mersey Rail yellow, Mersey Rail revised, chocolate and cream and new Reggie Rail. It took NH six months just to change the destination blinds on the chocolate and cream ones (Western Super Mare via Oldham and Rochdale!)

When the the data recorders where being installed I heard the 142's got an extended dispensation because no two had the same wiring, we'd been running around with them fitted to other classes of units for well over 18 months . There were certainly a few hybrid 150 3 car combos for a while at NH in the late 80's.

[keysan]

31 minutes ago, w124bob said:

I was based at Manchester Victoria from when the Pacers were almost new to 2002, Newton Heath never mixed and matched. At one time it was possible to see 5 or 6 different liveries together,pale blue, GMPTE orange, new GMPTE white black and red, Mersey Rail yellow, Mersey Rail revised, chocolate and cream and new Reggie Rail. It took NH six months just to change the destination blinds on the chocolate and cream ones (Western Super Mare via Oldham and Rochdale!)

When the the data recorders where being installed I heard the 142's got an extended dispensation because no two had the same wiring, we'd been running around with them fitted to other classes of units for well over 18 months . There were certainly a few hybrid 150 3 car combos for a while at NH in the late 80's.

Thank you, turned out to be a very interesting thread. Was there a maximum number of units that could be coupled together? I mentioned earlier in the thread that when they were new, I regularly used to witness 4 or more units heading around the curve at Earlestown heading in the Chester direction and not stopping (every passenger train stopped) I assumed it was mail. Now thinking it was running in turn (if they existed) or a stock move to Chester etc. Mail is still an option. It would have run through Earlestown just the right side of midnight. Or the left side if look at a clock face 😃

[Steven B]

Mail or parcels on a 142 is less likely than an empty stock movement, of which there were plenty. When they were new there were still plenty of 1st generation DMU about to take the parcels traffic.

 

Steven B

[w124bob]

22 hours ago, keysan said:

Thank you, turned out to be a very interesting thread. Was there a maximum number of units that could be coupled together? I mentioned earlier in the thread that when they were new, I regularly used to witness 4 or more units heading around the curve at Earlestown heading in the Chester direction and not stopping (every passenger train stopped) I assumed it was mail. Now thinking it was running in turn (if they existed) or a stock move to Chester etc. Mail is still an option. It would have run through Earlestown just the right side of midnight. Or the left side if look at a clock face 😃

Yes maximum number of any unit together was 5 back in my driving days, we had a regular Preston to NH ECS move. This departed around midnight which would regularly max out (I've been know to bring more than the regulation 5!). There was for a period a 142 parcel run to Chester from Manchester  Victoria with a stop at Bank Quay arriving at Chester around 1am. The unit then returned to Manchester Victoria( this was changed to Piccadilly) as a passenger service having departed Chester connecting with the Holyhead Euston (used to be about 01.15 off Holyhead), again calling at Warrington for connections north. There were always punters for Leeds and beyond who had a long wait at Victoria and I never understood why we couldn't run through to Leeds. The service disappeared from the timetable around 1989 I think.

[keysan]

On 17/09/2022 at 20:44, w124bob said:

Yes maximum number of any unit together was 5 back in my driving days, we had a regular Preston to NH ECS move. This departed around midnight which would regularly max out (I've been know to bring more than the regulation 5!). There was for a period a 142 parcel run to Chester from Manchester  Victoria with a stop at Bank Quay arriving at Chester around 1am. The unit then returned to Manchester Victoria( this was changed to Piccadilly) as a passenger service having departed Chester connecting with the Holyhead Euston (used to be about 01.15 off Holyhead), again calling at Warrington for connections north. There were always punters for Leeds and beyond who had a long wait at Victoria and I never understood why we couldn't run through to Leeds. The service disappeared from the timetable around 1989 I think.

That would tie in with my memory of walking back from the Leigh Arms next to Newton-Le Willows station aged 15, we started young! 11pm closing, leave before midnight then a 20 minute walk to Earlestown. From memory a third of one coach was designed for parcels with tip up seats. Would parcels only be transported in these dedicated areas or would the whole train have been used. Always annoyed me it was not a scheduled service and we had to walk. Probably also explains the 5 unit formations.

[w124bob]

In my experience from back then, conveying of mail and parcels on ordinary class 2 passenger trains had all but disappeared by the time the 142's had arrived. The Vic to Chester job I mentioned above conveyed little mail traffic, from memory about a dozen bags so barely filling the area where the tip up seats were. Diagramming had changed with the loss of newspaper traffic, previously a dedicated parcels unit did the midnightish run to Chester and the boat train connection was the return working from the last Vic to Chester train.

[Wheatley]

I don't think it was the case at the start, but at some point it was realised that locking off the secure parcels area on a 142 took out the only bodyside door on one side of the vehicle, and as there was no way of locking off an individual vehicle the whole set had to be locked out. But by them, as w124bob alludes, mail and parcels traffic was minimal.

 

There was still some Red Star traffic, I remember an argument outside the office between my colleague, who had accepted a load of rebar sections about 9 feet long from a regular customer*, and the guard of a Sheffield-Leeds train who was adamant that they weren't going on his 156 whilst offering suggestions as to where they could go if my colleague didn't wind his neck in. 

 

By 1994 we were taking the parcels area doors off (or at least trying to get them taken off) as by that stage they were just sliding about hitting passengers on the head and trapping their hands.  

 

*(This particular customer was a nationwide supplier of building materials. Most of their stuff went by road a lorryload at a time but if you rang them needing a left handed widget in a hurry they'd Red Star it out. Red Star charged by postcode, which could be a challenge if the delivery address was "Building site, field opposite Morrisons, 2miles south of Warwick, A46". After a brief discussion we decided to put the postcode for Coventry station in as they would be the delivery office. Deliveries within the same postcode as the DO were free so the system never charged for that particular one, which can't have helped Red Star's profitability much).    

 

 

Edited September 20, 2022 by Wheatley