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Post by Burnside on Dec 2, 2007 23:07:25 GMT 1
As the title suggests, Northern may be in for some good news and some bad news.
It all stems from the 30 class 158's Northern are due to receive.
Rumours abound that some of these units will be transferred instead to Scotrail.
If this happens, there will be good and bad news.
The good news: The centre cars from ex Central Trains 158's will move up to Yorkshire to strengthen some of the 2 car units already run by Northern.
The bad news? To make up the numbers so Northern have the right number of units in use, a number of Class 142's will be taken out of warm store and re-enter service.
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Post by Craig on Dec 3, 2007 20:29:03 GMT 1
Not really bad news - yes the 142s are life expired and not exactly a commuter's dream, but why have them sat in storage when they can be tagged onto other units at peak times to ease overcrowding? Any train is better than nothing, although it should really only be temporary until we get a larger fleet of better units... not that we're holding our breath on that one.
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Post by jackh on Dec 3, 2007 20:46:35 GMT 1
The ex Alphaline trains 158s, or Wessex Trains I think. Theres a few of them at Neville Hill.
Also yesterday when going past on TPE train, had seen a GNER 91 in whats been branded for National Express East Coast. Well didn't get a good look as train I was on was doing 60mph about there. However the Cars have white strip rather than the maroon strip along them.
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6u3zr
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Post by 6u3zr on Dec 4, 2007 21:34:15 GMT 1
Jack,
This is'nt actually the re-branding. It's simply the "de-branding" of the sets prior to next Monday. The precise point of this exercise escapes me as the strongest brand identifier for GNER was always their deep blue house colour.
Also as a corollary of this white striping is that the vehicle numbers have had to be re-applied to the sole bars.
Unusually, there does'nt appear to be a huge amount of pre-publicity for National Express. Very surprising.
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Post by jackh on Dec 4, 2007 22:12:37 GMT 1
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6u3zr
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Post by 6u3zr on Dec 6, 2007 23:42:03 GMT 1
It seems that National Express intend to use a version of their most recent coach livery - less blue - in an adapted form for their operations.
They are preparing an HST rake for Monday's launch.
I travel from Bradford to Peterborough twice a month at least on business, therefore in first class. GNER's standards have declined perceptibly in recent months and staff morale has been noticeably lacking.
Hopefully Nat-Ex will make of East Coast what it made of Midland Mainline.
I have the option to use a company car on business trips but would rather not. If, however, the decline continues and specifically if my allegedly reserved seat on the return journey turns out to be occupied I might find myself resorting to the A1.
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