Didn't First paint about 8 166s (or was it 165s) just before GWR took over, they then stayed in purple to about 2-3 years ago. It was something like 8 or 9 years before they got painted green.
Well, GWR didn’t “take over” - they’re still First Great Western in all but name - so it was just a brand relaunch. Units that had reached their painting date would still have to be painted - so purple to be.
There was something odd going on around the time the GWR brand came in, but I can't remember the full details. A small number of units (including at least one 150 and a small number of 166s or 165s I think) were repainted in plain FirstGW blue with pink doors (as per the 'dynamic lines' HST livery but without the vinyls) and a class 153 (nicknamed 'Casper') was painted white, before authorisation was obtained to paint the rest of the 153 fleet in the new GWR green. Only one of the 180s got (partial) GWR livery as well I think - and even that was only one end of the unit (the other end remained in FirstGW Dynamic Lines).
Established HSS Drivers (at Plymouth) sign 150/153, HST’s (2+8), Castles (2+4), Voyagers, 800/802, Class 47/57, Class 08.
I'd bet that HSTs, Castles and Class 47s are off their cards now, given the haste with which GWR was culling HST knowledge during the rundown.
Isn't the Night Riviera still hauled by class 57s? Or is that not worked by Plymouth crews at all? Also, I'm surprised to see that there are TOC drivers who work both Voyagers and 800s/802s, since GWR don't have Voyagers in their and XC don't have 80x - meaning that the same driver must be working for multiple TOCs. Is GBR already starting to brake down the franchise silos that result in things like ECS moves between Swansea and Cardiff because TfW don't have a traincrew depot in Swansea, even before GWR is nationalised?
wonder why TFW got rid of them.
Inability to work in multiple with anything else and a headline-grabbing "we're going to replace the entire train fleet" bid from KeolisAmey (who were the winning bidder for the TfW operating contract, before COVID caused early termination), presumably. If I recall correctly the 175s were the most-reliable trains in Arriva Train Wales' fleet in 2018, when TfW took over. It went downhill sometime after that.
Was this after GWR abandoned the 769s in December 2022? TFW ran down the 175s from February 2023 with 175002 which went into storage before arriving at Laira November 2024 and is often being used at Newquay. It did not go through Wolverton.
ATW's franchise ended in October 2018 and I understand the new TfW fleet had already been ordered by June 2019, so the CAF takeover of Chester depot was already contractually committed by then.
Wasn't the 'Castle HST' project supposed to deliver life-extension for the mark 3s through to the 2030s? It can't have been a cheap job to fit the mark 3s with power doors, only for the DfT/Treasury to lose faith in the project and drop them from both XC and GWR after less than 6 years beyond the 2020 PRM deadline that led to the power doors?
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