Class 158 centre cars

[physics34]

How many ran around as 3 car made up of a 2 car unit with a Driving car from another set attached. Does this still happen? One of the things a southerner like me found odd when i travelled up north!

 

[BestWestern]

How many ran around as 3 car made up of a 2 car unit with a Driving car from another set attached. Does this still happen? One of the things a southerner like me found odd when i travelled up north!

All of GWR's fleet! With the exceptions on 798 and their two remaining two car sets. Hence the 158/9 numbering.

 

[physics34]

All of GWR's fleet! With the exceptions on 798 and their two remaining two car sets. Hence the 158/9 numbering.

lol...... okay.... somes up my recent lack of travelling!!

 

[edwin_m]

Agreed entirely.

I never found CT that bad, reality is in CT days one often got a 3-car train on many of the longer distance routes, on many occasions a 158 or 170. Now many routes where you could get a 170 in CT days now have 158s, or in some cases 153s. Personally I'd have preferred a focus on making CT work, rather than breaking it up. As you say, the lack of flexibility in the fleets really shows now.

The flipside of that was that what you'd get was pretty random, often including a 150 on the sort of long-distance working that otherwise might actually attract business travellers.

 

[Rhydgaled]

General strengthening and cascading, plus a number for Oxford - Bletchley - Bedford - Corby - Peterborough - Cambridge.

So BR had plans to reopen East-West rail way back then, and we are still waiting for the western section over 25 years later?

 

[D365]

So BR had plans to reopen East-West rail way back then, and we are still waiting for the western section over 25 years later?

They were proposing to reopen a number of East-West lines; Huntingdon-St Ives-Cambridge, for example.

 

[LowLevel]

The flipside of that was that what you'd get was pretty random, often including a 150 on the sort of long-distance working that otherwise might actually attract business travellers.

A class 150 though to be fair would actually be preferable to the current situation where the fleet has collapsed and the short formation list each day is depressingly long with people being left behind all over the shop. I love my job but we do get a feeling of 'what is going to happen to me today' - shortformed or roasted with no air con or both. If quite like to just stay off until October..

 

[NorthernSpirit]

All of GWR's fleet! With the exceptions on 798 and their two remaining two car sets. Hence the 158/9 numbering.

Before TPE got their 185's the 158's that they were using often were hybrids but as far as I can remember, these were in the 158/7 range and not in the 158/9 range.

Wouuld be interesting what the numbers were.

 

[LowLevel]

Before TPE got their 185's the 158's that they were using often were hybrids but as far as I can remember, these were in the 158/7 range and not in the 158/9 range.

Wouuld be interesting what the numbers were.

As far as I know all the hybrids have been numbered 158/9 with all operators - first Central Trains, then TPE and finally FGW/GWR.

 

[Tractor37]

The TPE 3 car hybrids were numbered 158971 to 158976

 

[978wta]

Digging up an old thread here!

Out of curiosity have any engine mismatches occurred with the swapping around of the centre cars?

Example, is there a 3 car set with a Perkins + Cummins (350hp) + Perkins.

Also any mismatches with the 2 variants of the Cummins engines?

 

[LowLevel]

Digging up an old thread here!

Out of curiosity have any engine mismatches occurred with the swapping around of the centre cars?

Example, is there a 3 car set with a Perkins + Cummins (350hp) + Perkins.

Also any mismatches with the 2 variants of the Cummins engines?

No, there are none of the above.

 

[978wta]

Thanks.

 

[LOL The Irony]

Why didn't they build them all as 3 car units instead of just the trans-pennine ones being 3 car?

Because in the late 80's, rail usage was falling and not many people if any could have seen modern usage.

 

[superkev]

Seems odd that apart from those converted to 159s one centre car is I be live with GW trains the rest being with NR. Why GW trains want just one centre car unit i know not.
K

 

[Bletchleyite]

Seems odd that apart from those converted to 159s one centre car is I be live with WM trains the rest being with NR. Why wm trains want just one 3 car unit i know not.
K

WMT don't have *any* Class 158s.

 

[dubscottie]

IIRC from the press at the time, NSE got the 22x 3 car units that became 159s as part of a deal with RR.

NSE took over the running of some RR services in the Oxford & Chiltern areas and in the west in exchange for the 159s.

RR also paid for 2x166 units as part of the deal.

 

[superkev]

WMT don't have *any* Class 158s.

Sorry meant GW (158798). Post edited.
K

 

[Helvellyn]

Sorry meant GW (158798).

I think this unit was meant to go to SWT who would have had nine 3-car 159/1s to replace nine 2-car 170/3s and then ten 2-car 158s for strengthening.

However, FGW then swapped out its Perkins engined 158s for ex-TPX Cummins ones with the plan to split a third of their fleet and use the vehicles to have all 3-car units. But they would have been left with one 2-car unit so I believe a deal was done where they took one as built 3-car unit (158798) so they could run all services as 3-cars.

SWT thus got an extra 2-car unit giving them eight 159/1s and eleven 158s. Then the 2008 financial crisis hit and SWT didn't need as many 2-car units (I think the plan was at least one more ten-car 158-158-159-159 formation would have run in the morning peak). Hence one is now permanently with EMT.

 

[Helvellyn]

I think some of the original Regional Railways plans for the centre cars was to give ScotRail some 4-car units for the Edinburgh-Glasgow services but in the end it was determined to be more efficient to give ScotRail all 2-car units and run them in pairs as required.

 

[superkev]

I think this unit was meant to go to SWT who would have had nine 3-car 159/1s to replace nine 2-car 170/3s and then ten 2-car 158s for strengthening.

However, FGW then swapped out its Perkins engined 158s for ex-TPX Cummins ones with the plan to split a third of their fleet and use the vehicles to have all 3-car units. But they would have been left with one 2-car unit so I believe a deal was done where they took one as built 3-car unit (158798) so they could run all services as 3-cars.

SWT thus got an extra 2-car unit giving them eight 159/1s and eleven 158s. Then the 2008 financial crisis hit and SWT didn't need as many 2-car units (I think the plan was at least one more ten-car 158-158-159-159 formation would have run in the morning peak). Hence one is now permanently with EMT.

Thankou most interesting. Strange also northern finished up with one 400hp Cummins unit along with a mixture of Perkins and 350hp Cummins. Often wondered which engine is best.
K

 

[61653 HTAFC]

Thankou most interesting. Strange also northern finished up with one 400hp Cummins unit along with a mixture of Perkins and 350hp Cummins. Often wondered which engine is best.
K

Leaving aside which ROSCOs own which vehicles, it'd have made sense for some of the 400hp ones to have been the ones which became 159/1s even though it'd have meant some swapping around. Unless having 400hp driving cars with a 350hp centre car would've caused issues of course.

 

[43096]

Leaving aside which ROSCOs own which vehicles, it'd have made sense for some of the 400hp ones to have been the ones which became 159/1s even though it'd have meant some swapping around. Unless having 400hp driving cars with a 350hp centre car would've caused issues of course.

No, it would have made more sense for the 10 2-cars with 400hp engines (158863-872) to go to SWT rather than their 350hp 158s. There was a proposed ownership swap between Angel and Porterbrook to simplify ownership as well. Very sensible - but it was rejected by DfT.

 

[hexagon789]

Thankou most interesting. Strange also northern finished up with one 400hp Cummins unit along with a mixture of Perkins and 350hp Cummins. Often wondered which engine is best.
K

Definitely the Cummins from what I gather; the throttle set-up on the Perkins units seems to get a lot of stick as being poor from drivers.

 

[superkev]

No, it would have made more sense for the 10 2-cars with 400hp engines (158863-872) to go to SWT rather than their 350hp 158s. There was a proposed ownership swap between Angel and Porterbrook to simplify ownership as well. Very sensible - but it was rejected by DfT.

Yes I remember wondering at the time why all the 400hp ones didn't go to SWT. Should of guessed it was the Dft involved. A process which as an ex engineer I used to call "the unstoppable march of the clerks".
I also seem to remember problems when the ex original TPE 3 cars sets where split up and reformed with different units for no apparent reason.
K

 

[whhistle]

The same reasons as why there aren't 10 car Voyagers, 3 car 156s, 4 car 175s, 6 car 180s, 5 car 185s, 4 car 195s .......

What an informative post...

It's easy to assume cost but that's usually not the underlying reason.
And you can't go blaming the SRA either...

 

[twpsaesneg]

What an informative post...

It's easy to assume cost but that's usually not the underlying reason.
And you can't go blaming the SRA either...

IIRC at the time of the introduction of the 15x units, British Rail was funded to replace every 3 vehicles with 2, so what would have been a 3-car Class 126 (or insert 1st gen DMU of your choice) would have been replaced with a 2-car 15x unit. I'm assuming the same formula would have applied to LHCS as well, with Loco+5 formations being replaced with ~3-cars worth of sprinter.

 

[Indigo Soup]

What an informative post...

It's easy to assume cost but that's usually not the underlying reason.
And you can't go blaming the SRA either...

My interpretation would be that the 'short' formations ordered are because traffic forecasts didn't find any justification for longer trains.