All the evidence posted in these forums over the last couple of years has been that EMR were keeping all or most of their 158s for use on the now retained Liverpool - Nottingham service. Has that changed?
The number of 17x vehicles that EMR is getting has actually increased slightly from the original plans.
GWR 'replaced' their crash victim by cutting the Brighton service. SWR likewise by no longer running to Bristol.
Likely all will go to Northern!
Is it really worth Northern taking on 158s? How many current class 150 diagrams would work better with a cascaded 156 or 158?
It was a joke as all the old DMUs seem to go to Northern!
Well 156s would easily replace 150s, and the 158s could replace some 156 diagrams, or maybe even some 195s just to get rid of the 150s.
I don't think Northern see it that way. 150s can deal better with some journeys than 156s.
The suggestion seems to be, at least within Northern realms, 159 > 158 > 156 > 150. But I'd agree that more new self-powered units, in the vein of the 195s, are the only way to go.
If we get new designs, it'll be for trains around London, which the SWR units are. While the DFT likes to bang on about cost cutting, for London, there isn't really any expense spared.
Why not order a fleet of bi mode express 730s x around 70-80 5 car sets to replace 158/9/444 stock so then exeter can interwork with Weymouth and Portsmouth diagrams and more flexible working?
The 444 fleet does not need replacement.
The Exeter service just doesn’t need to interwork with the Weymouth and Portsmouth routes, which can carry on using the existing stock for another 20 years.
The class 444 is superb. Doesn't need an upgrade any time soon. And a connection there is something that would be nice but it isn't necessary.
So it is okay to ditch 10 year old class 379's? Or class 332 Heathrow Express units also after 10 years, just because they apparently cannot be used anywhere else?
Both Electrostars and Desiro UK has a gap of about 10 years between the first and last build.
Thank you. The introduction time is less, but from the time the orders where placed for say the C2C class 357 to the time of the orders for class 387's was about 10 years. Introduction time goes from 1999 - 2014. If you just take the class 377 on it's own, it was built in variations from 2001 - 2014.
The technology as far as I am aware in the class 377/1 is not the same as in the class 377/7's, but both are electrostars. So, the changing of technology does make it such as to how the units are classified. It is whether the manufacturer is still building a version of the train in ten years say from today, which given the lifespan of train manufacturing would be, yes you could buy an Aventra hybrid train today and you would probably be buying a more advanced version of that in 10 years time, but could be classified as the same type of unit.
As far as I understood it, the 332s were owned by Heathrow Airport Holdings and were completely knackered by the time they were withdrawn. Therefore, not within the financial remit of the DfT; so HAH could do what they wanted with them. It is the same scenario when it came to the “uproar” about the 360/2s being scrapped and how they could have apparently been utilised for service elsewhere on the network (eg to supplement EMR’s Connect operation).
).The 332s also lacked TPWS so couldn't run on the rest of the network without significant modification.
