TOC's that use Class 156's

[anti-pacer]

AFAIK, the TOC's that operate Class 156's are...

East Midlands Trains
First Scotrail
Greater Anglia
Northern Rail

Have I missed any?

Presuming not, why do Arriva Trains Wales and First Great Western not use them?

Please excuse my ignorance if they do, however, I've not seen any.

 

[RichmondCommu]

G'day anti-pacer, I guess the problem is why would anyone want to give them up?

 

[fgwrich]

AFAIK, the TOC's that operate Class 156's are...

East Midlands Trains
First Scotrail
Greater Anglia
Northern Rail

Have I missed any?

Presuming not, why do Arriva Trains Wales and First Great Western not use them?

Please excuse my ignorance if they do, however, I've not seen any.

Probably because they've never been in the GW area when GW/Wessex was franchised and also down to availability - 156s have only ever been south during the Class 155 to 153 conversion and during the early Class 158 leaf fall / adheasion problems when a batch of RR ScotRail 156s were diverted to work the Cardiff - Portsmouth & Brighton services. Since then, the only other times a 156 would have gone anywhere near to the FGW & ATW areas would have been Central Trains 156s on the Cambrian Coast & Birmingham to Cardiff Central services.

The South was always fairly lucky with units - The 33 hauled Cardiff to Portsmouth services were replaced with Class 155 units, which in turn where replaced with Class 158s when the 155s were singled. These then moved down to work the branchlines of the South West & Wales along with Class 150s to replace the 1st Gen units down there, where they've largely remained ever since.

I'd love to see a 156 in FGW Local Lines though!

 

[fowler9]

AFAIK, the TOC's that operate Class 156's are...

East Midlands Trains
First Scotrail
Greater Anglia
Northern Rail

Have I missed any?

Presuming not, why do Arriva Trains Wales and First Great Western not use them?

Please excuse my ignorance if they do, however, I've not seen any.

They can't have them and I will personally stop them from them away.

 

[Peter Mugridge]

Probably because they've never been in the GW area when GW/Wessex was franchised and also down to availability - 156s have only ever been south during the Class 155 to 153 conversion and during the early Class 158 leaf fall / adheasion problems when a batch of RR ScotRail 156s were diverted to work the Cardiff - Portsmouth & Brighton services.

Not quite; the 156s on the Portsmouths was when the entire class 155 fleet was grounded for a while after a series of door open in service incidents.

 

[tbtc]

why do Arriva Trains Wales and First Great Western not use them?

Both of these TOCs have services that could suit a 156 (e.g. Milford Haven), and have to decide whether to run them with something "worse" than a 156 (Pacer/ 150) or something "better" than a 156 (158/ 175)...

...but its simpler to have fewer types of stock at a TOC - for the same reason that Northern have 156s in NE/ "Lancashire" and 155s/158s in "Yorkshire".

156s are great units - underrated IMHO - but they fall into that "neither nowt nor summat" category of being too grand for a short stopper but too slow/downmarket for some longer distance routes - makes sense to have them spread over just a few TOCs.

 

[LowLevel]

They're designed for longer distance but lower speed trundles. They were always perfect for things like Brum to Lincoln or Pwllheli, or the Skegness line and so on. The franchise map has largely dictated where they ended up rather than their actual usefulness.

 

[Beveridges]

They are a great Pacer substitute.