Marston Vale line suspension - possible short term solutions?

[Essex Express]

Moderator note: split from https://www.railforums.co.uk/threads/marston-vale-line-suspension-local-mp-gets-involved.242143/

With the old west Midland class 153 being stored, is this the best short term fix?

The toilet issue can solved by what Transport for Wales has done by fitting a disabled Toilet until this is done and the DFT giving a dispensation for them to run.

The only time each day that you need to run a pair of 153 is the morning school run and the afternoon school run this was the old 150 diagram and the single car 153 had the other diagrams that didn't have the school kids on.

So all that is needed is for the two school runs is to attach a second 153 unit that can come of the depot for each of the two trips.

The 153 units have be operated that the guard can release one door at the station that has the short platform. practise has worked in the past by Greater Anglia for when they stopped at Berney Arms station

You need 4 or 5 units to cover the route 2 covering the all day duties one unit to cover the school trip and either 1 or 2 as in depot under repair.

 

[Bletchleyite]

With the old west Midland class 153 been stored this is the the best short term fix. The toilet issue can solved by what Transport for Wales has done by fitting a disabled Toilet until this is done and the DFT giving a dispensation for them to run. The only time each day that you need to run a pair of 153 is the morning school run and the afternoon school run this was the old 150 diagram and the single car 153 had the other diagrams that didnt have the school kids on. So all that is needed is for the two school runs is to attach a second 153 unit that can come of the depot for each of the two trips. The 153 units have be operated that the guard can release one door at the station that has the short platform. practise has worked in the past by Greater Anglia for when they stopped at Berney Arms station.
You need 4 or 5 units to cover the route 2 covering the all day duties one unit to cover the school trip and either 1 or 2 as in depot under repair.

It was going to be done with 153s before the 230 idea, but single units with the bogs removed (nothing requires there to be one, just that if there is one there is at least one PRM one). There would have been three units, one of the three would normally be spare but would operate "flighted" extras for the schools twice a day, possibly skip stopped.

That said, I reckon you could modify a 153's seating layout to be S8-like then it'd probably work, kids usually don't mind standing, we used to think it was fun.