You could transfer a handful of 158s from SWT to FGW and then transfer the responsibility for the Romsey-Salisbury services to FGW as well. FGW could then run the service using 150s with 158s put on other more appropriate routes. It perhaps isn't as logical as SWT running the route but it wouldn't be completely inappropriate. The 150s could run back at Bristol at the start/end of the day, either attached to or forming another service. As long as the units get swapped about there is always the option of stabling units at Fratton and Westbury as well. Fratton and Westbury FGW crews aren't logistically that badly placed to work the services either.
That's a reasonable suggestion on the face of it. I understand that the stations at Dean and Mottisfont & Dunbridge are still under FGW custody, along with Romsey of course, so the route is not entirely out of their territory. FGW crews also sign So'ton - Eastleigh and the Chandlers Ford road, so no route knowledge issues. There is also the issue that the company would like it's Fratton-based crews to be more productive, as they only sign Cardiff and Brighton at present, and there isn't a great deal of scope to sign much else due to the logistics of it all.
Of course, it won't happen though
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It maybe over the top but using a 450 IMO is seriously OTT.
I am very fond of the line having grown up round those parts but (and I am very embarrassed to say this) removing the juice and using a pacer would be quite acceptable.
I'd agree with that. There is, I feel, serious scope to look at whether Pacers can be further redeployed in years to come in some form of 'tram-train' style operation on small branches, like Lymington and numerous other locations where there is simply no real need for a heavy rail service, just a reliable shuttle of some kind. They may be unpopular for much of their current service use, but there is plenty of scope for them to run on branches and the like; they are cheap to operate, lightweight and already have the safety case for main operation line that they would need to undertake, for example coming off the Lymington line to Brockenhurst.
In the meantime, there are options available. ATW and Chiltern use 'Bubble cars' quite happily on restricted runs, why not use one here? I find it difficult to believe that a lack of spares would have been the real reason for SWT's decision to withdraw the 'Slammers, we are hardly talking about maintaining the space shuttle here, they aren't overly complex. One would have hoped that SWT might have saved some spares when they withdrew their mainstream fleet, but even if they did not then I find it difficult to believe that there could be much that couldn't be remanufactured if needed. Didn't the same excuse crop up for ditching the 442s at one point?!
I'm afraid it appears to me that SWT simply didn't fancy the minor ballache of maintaining a couple of 'non-standard' units, which in the current situation I really find unacceptable. Perhaps questions ought to be asked about how a TOC found themselves in the highly luxurious position of being able to simply discard two perfectly serviceable trains thanks to their overly generous allocation of stock?
Only one coach had the loo 
, and they weren't interconnected.
