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Class 456's on the move?

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samuelmorris

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59CosG95 said:
I mean, sure, they took an age sorting the software out at Wimbledon and Wolverton, but this has REALLY paid off! A friend of mine said that SWT had "crap trains", but he hasn't travelled AGA, ATW or Northern yet...
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Most of my SWT travel is on 159s or 450s, so to me that's laughable :D

This refurb job does actually look really good though, seemingly a lot more convincing on the inside than the 458/0->458/5 conversions :D
I only travelled on a Southern 456 once or twice, but they didn't seem all that wonderful to me. This looks very tidy for a unit of that era.
 
Peter Mugridge

Peter Mugridge

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I saw a 455 + 456 + 456 rake shunting within Wimbledon depot this afternoon, viewed from the 14.50 Waterloo - Woking service.
 
Feathers44

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I just had a 455+456+456 pass the house on the way to Guildford. It looks like the hard working Wimbledon folks have recovered a second unit into service.
 
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EAD

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Feathers44 said:
I just had a 455+456+456 pass the house on the way to Guildford. It looks like the hard working Wimbledon folks have recovered a second unit into service.
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That is good news - I was trying to catch the sole 456 on the 18:24 off WAT to Dorking on Wednesday night. Easy to spot where the 456 was due to be as formation updates spoke of 6 car trains. Sadly booked crew not trained up on the 456 according to SWT via Twitter, so ended up being a sole 455 (which went down well of course).

2 questions: 1) Does anyone know the extent of crew training needed - clearly it is needed, but can't take too long given similarities with 455s. 2) Does anyone have the planned diagram for the now 2 refurbed 456s? SWT only shows the intention for the mornings rather than the rest of the day. You could spot the plan earlier this week through the use of 6 car formations in journey check e.g. on the Hampton Court runs.
 
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Goldfish62

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samuelmorris said:
Most of my SWT travel is on 159s or 450s, so to me that's laughable :D

This refurb job does actually look really good though, seemingly a lot more convincing on the inside than the 458/0->458/5 conversions :D
I only travelled on a Southern 456 once or twice, but they didn't seem all that wonderful to me. This looks very tidy for a unit of that era.
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I agree - a very nice job. The 458/5 conversions, especially those from 458/0s are very second rate in comparison.
 
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SansPareil

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Are there differences in the bodyshells or floor heights between the 455s and 456s. The doors on the refurbished 456s certainly seem to be smaller than on the refurbished 455s, both in height and width, and internally the ceiling height seems lower as well.
 
tom1649

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The refurbishment has made a big improvement to the interior. I say that as one of the few people on here who likes the old Ashbourne seats.
 
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TEW

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Had a quick run down to Hampton Court this morning on the refurbished 456s. Clearly a high quality refurbishment which is a huge improvement. However I'm not convinced by the new seating layout. Both carriages have a sizable area of longtudinal seating and the majority of seats are at bays. The combined effect of this is that the 456s seem quite low capacity, a 4-456 must provide a fair number less seats than a 455. Some of the airline seats have dreadful legroom. I'm not exactly tall but I was struggling to sit in the row directly behind the cab.
 
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455driver

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TEW said:
Had a quick run down to Hampton Court this morning on the refurbished 456s. Clearly a high quality refurbishment which is a huge improvement. However I'm not convinced by the new seating layout. Both carriages have a sizable area of longtudinal seating and the majority of seats are at bays. The combined effect of this is that the 456s seem quite low capacity, a 4-456 must provide a fair number less seats than a 455. Some of the airline seats have dreadful legroom. I'm not exactly tall but I was struggling to sit in the row directly behind the cab.
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It s a question of passenger carrying, you can carry a lot more passengers if they are standing up and 2+2 (and the longitudinal seating) gives more standing room.
 
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samuelmorris

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Given the intended use of these units I think that's justified. They're not going to be long-hauling down to the coast so for the half hour or so journies their passengers will be making 90% of the time, that seems a fair way of addressing the capacity issue. Stuff like this is welcome when it's not a question of 'I can't get a seat' but more likely 'I can't even board the train'...
 
Feathers44

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We seem to have a second pair of 'new' 456s rumbling through this week.

I've seen them both days heading into London at about 7:25 with the pair on the diagram published earlier in this thread going past (on average) at about 8:10 towards Epsom.

Do we now have four in service?
 
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swt_passenger

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Feathers44 said:
We seem to have a second pair of 'new' 456s rumbling through this week.

I've seen them both days heading into London at about 7:25 with the pair on the diagram published earlier in this thread going past (on average) at about 8:10 towards Epsom.

Do we now have four in service?
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Apparently yes, a post in wnxx reports that the second pair is running on the 0701 from Dorking? Does that fit in with your times?
 
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Goldfish62

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Feathers44 said:
We seem to have a second pair of 'new' 456s rumbling through this week.

I've seen them both days heading into London at about 7:25 with the pair on the diagram published earlier in this thread going past (on average) at about 8:10 towards Epsom.

Do we now have four in service?
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Makes me wonder why there's been a significant stock shortage over the past couple of days.
 
Juniper Driver

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Feathers44 said:
We seem to have a second pair of 'new' 456s rumbling through this week.

I've seen them both days heading into London at about 7:25 with the pair on the diagram published earlier in this thread going past (on average) at about 8:10 towards Epsom.

Do we now have four in service?
Click to expand...

Yup I saw the 2x2 car attached to a 455 in the South Sidings this morning.Also must have seen the same train as I came out of Waterloo before hand and they looked pretty charming.
 
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SpacePhoenix

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How much work would be involved in fitting shoes to the inner bogies and hooking them shoes into whatever the current shoes feed into?
 
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