Porterbrook Class 150 gifted to Mid Hants Railway.

[Invincible]

Praps the highly solvent Porterbrook ROSCO could gift /loan some cl 150 DMUs to gWR/gBR to help out on Devon and Cornwall local services, where hardly a day goes by without passengers suffering disruption and delay due cancellation of services and short forms through far too regular instances of unit failures.

GWR and Porterbrook fell out over the refurbished 319/ tri mode 769s which were to run between Oxford and Gatwick, to release some 166s to the West Country. But the 769s were unreliable and had cramped cabs.GWR now has some 175s, and the long term plans for GWR now seems for new trains (under a tender process)

Guess the remaining 769s and various 150s will be scrapped, unless some go in preservation?

Good video of the150 to Alton.

 

[61653 HTAFC]

GWR and Porterbrook fell out over the refurbished 319/ tri mode 769s which were to run between Oxford and Gatwick, to release some 166s to the West Country. But the 769s were unreliable and had cramped cabs.GWR now has some 175s, and the long term plans for GWR now seems for new trains (under a tender process)

Guess the remaining 769s and various 150s will be scrapped, unless some go in preservation?

Good video of the150 to Alton.

So far only TfW have begun to withdraw their 150s with no new operator waiting for them. We're a long long way from them being stood down at Northern so I don't think we need to worry about the Mid Hants unit being a "sole survivor" for quite some time.

Comments on the TfW withdrawals thread led me to believe that most of the 150s withdrawn from Wales were held together with little more than spit and hope, so I'm pleasantly surprised that the preserved unit managed the long trip to its new home without incident!

 

[D365]

Comments on the TfW withdrawals thread led me to believe that most of the 150s withdrawn from Wales were held together with little more than spit and hope, so I'm pleasantly surprised that the preserved unit managed the long trip to its new home without incident!

It's been reported that 231 had bodywork repairs before it was repainted (or revinyled?). Presumably it was one of the 'less worse' 150s.

 

[Cymroglan]

Just noticed this on the Mid Hants Bluesky feed:

“We are pleased to share that our Class 150 'Sprinter' Unit will celebrate its first day in service on The Watercress Line on the 15th of February!✨
Book your ticket to our Magic of Locomotion event to join us on this historic day.”

This was posted yesterday, 01/02/26