The 195s are hopelessly unreliable rubbish units . Short formed Calder Valley services are a daily occurrence : Wednesday 6 out of 9 Leeds to Chester diagrams short formed solo 195/0 . The day before four solo 195 failed on Calder Valley services : 009 013 017 020 . 195020 came out the next day for Rose Hill Marple duties but retired hurt to the Newton Heath pavilion after a couple of return trips and hasn't been seen since ! 195009 was still dumped at Bradford Interchange last night when I came through the day after failing .
Tuesday 195132 was sent out of Newton Heath for the 649 Hebden to York with the front engine out of action . Yesterday I was on the same service again...this time the engine in the rear coach of 195105 cut out shortly after leaving Sowerby Bridge, failed to restart at Halifax and laboured to Bradford at about 40 mph ...remarkably it kept going but was later swopped out to finish back at Newton Heath. 195102 had issues at Lancaster Tuesday on the 1129 Manchester Airport to Windermere causing multiple cancellations on the branch. 195025 sat down near Retford last Wednesday for around 4 hours on the 1438 Leeds to Lincoln and hasn't worked a service since .
Often the 1657 Manchester Victoria to Leeds and 1627 Chester to Leeds will miss out the Rochdale stop if a solo 195/0 (instead of booked 2 X 195) as the train is too small to accommodate the passengers . The poor availability of the 195s affects other routes too, with 158s and often a 150 used on Leeds to Lincoln / Nottingham services so 195/0 can be released to very thinly paper over the shortage of stock .
Northern appear to have shuffled the six Leeds Wigan diagrams so there are now 3 or 4 three cars used on diagrams that should be 2 X 158 , thou this often means the busiest trains such as the 1717 Leeds Wigan is just a 2 car 158 (when if a 3 as booked it is full & standing to Dewsbury or Mirfield) .
And then we have long term absentees 195115 and 195116 ....still out of use , it must be for at least 4 months ?! What is the issue with these (wheelsets ?) , any ideas on a return ? Any other 195s likely to be out of use for months at Newton Heath?
Northern can only work with what they are given: if that is woefully inadequate there's little they can do about it . There's no signs of 195 reliability improving from what I've seen on recent travels so the short forming and overcrowding is here for the foreseeable it seems . At least with Real time trains you can try to avoid the two car Calder Valley services most of the time ; although sometimes there are that many it's not always possible !
