Re: Train Spotters Corner
 

London Underground: Designs for Tube trains unveiled.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-29520761

Re: Train Spotters Corner
 

Hitachi chosen to build ScotRail fleet.

http://www.railnews.co.uk/news/2014/...-scotrail.html


Network Rail says 'sorry' for Great Western delays.

http://www.railnews.co.uk/news/2014/...sorry-for.html

Re: Train Spotters Corner
 

They aught to be apologising for the delays from Penzance for no apparent reason that caused me to miss my connections and booked seats on Tuesday.

It was one of those manky, noisy old diesel units that couldn't pull the skin of a rice pudding and accelerate with all the pace of an arthritic snail on Mogodon. I looked its type up and it's called a "Sprinter" and supposidly capable of 90MPH. Somebody's having a laugh and it wasn't me.

Boy was I glad the last leg was on Southern region and their nice quiet, spacious trains.

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One of these?

https://www.cableforum.co.uk/images/...2014/10/16.jpg

Horrible things. I went on one from Shrewsbury to Aberystwyth once. It seemed to take forever and it wasn't very comfortable either.

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Those "Sprinter's" are bloody terrible as we have to get one of them at Westbury for our connection to Fareham and they never arrive on time Heero.:(:td:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Rail_Class_150

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Rail_Class_156

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Yep, that's the dog, only in FGW colours. No legroom either.

It seemed to dawdle out of Redruth for ages so we were 15 minutes late into Plymouth.

Yes I had one again from Bath Spa to Fareham, at least that got in roughly on time. Nasty though.

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Updated franchise schedule signals GW extension.

http://www.railnews.co.uk/news/2014/...ignals-gw.html

:rolleyes:

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Far worse than the 150's are these horrors of rail travel ( Class 142 which I think have left FGW, and the Class 143 which are still used down there IIRC and finally the always awful class 153 "Dogboxes"

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Ah, the always-awful nodding donkey. :D

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Ah, the sprinter. A combination of state run British Rail deciding to save money by attaching a (state run) Leyland National coach to a couple of coal wagon axles...

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That's the pacer, a.k.a. nodding donkey. The sprinter was supposed to be the next generation DMU for longer rural routes - pictured 4 posts above.

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Of course we have to remember that the sprinter fleet are getting on for 30 years old now, when they were first introduced here in the Midlands to replace the old slam door DMU's people loved them, with quicker journey times in most cases (unless you got a Tyseley power twin instead, with a Saltley driver they put even the sprinters to shame :) ) People have seen what some other area's have in the way of stock and want something similar.

The 153's were crap when they were originally the Leyland built 155's, we had no end of trouble with them on various test/crew training runs and always felt cheap and nasty compared to the Metro Cam 156's. The conversion to the 153 made them even worse.

I still can't believe we have pacers running on the network, they were a huge mistake from the beginning.

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Sadly we get a lot of the old rolling stock down here RH as the HST's alone are 40 years old with no sign of any new stock coming our way in the foreseeable future and then there is some of the other older rubbish like the sprinter's where you can sit down and get wet when its raining in a certain direction as my sister found out when she was down here on holiday.

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Yet more family silver being sold off it seems.

http://www.railnews.co.uk/news/2014/...pposition.html

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Ah yes, my mistake. Still a load of 142s around Cardiff and with my sister's house near a curve you can hear the darned things squealing near constantly. Even the big coal trains are quieter!