New uses for pacers

[whole diary]

[grahame]

From a usually reliable source

Competition will breathe new life into an old Pacer train

Community groups will be invited to put forward ideas to reuse an old Pacer train carriage.

Rail Minister calls for ideas on how a Pacer train could be renovated to serve communities

An old Pacer could be transformed into a community space, cafe or new village hall

[Red Squirrel]

Hows about something like this? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0hTvGTkDpsI

[rogerw]

Hows about something like this? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0hTvGTkDpsI

Perhaps off the coast at Dawlish to reduce the wave height

[Celestial]

I can think of a few stations with fairly inadequate waiting areas. Cut a few holes in the side of one and turn the seats around would create a lot more under cover waiting area.

Or, stack one up on blocks with some steps on either side to create a footbridge for Pilning.

[broadgage]

From a usually reliable source

Competition will breathe new life into an old Pacer train

Community groups will be invited to put forward ideas to reuse an old Pacer train carriage.
Rail Minister calls for ideas on how a Pacer train could be renovated to serve communities
An old Pacer could be transformed into a community space, cafe or new village hall

Very silly idea IMHO^▸ (in my humble opinion).
A purpose made mobile home or prefabricated building would almost certainly be cheaper and more satisfactory.
The great cost of providing community facilities is largely due to the land value, the planning process, permits and permissions, and providing access.
The actual structure is often cheap.
Who wants a rusty old pacer that is poorly insulated and lets in the rain, and is the wrong shape, when a good used modular building can be purchased for a few thousand pounds.

BTW^▸ (by the way), I recently purchased TWO large porta-huts for a total of £3,000 including delivery, not for myself.
Both ready for use and now being lived in without any significant extra work or conversion.

[Red Squirrel]

Oooh! Oooh! I know! Please sir! We could convert them into... buses!

[martyjon]

The Yuf of Yate would love one placed on the grassed area next to their Armidillo Cafe so they could sit and chat with friends over a coffee or pepsi and the playgroups of Yate would love one placed in their compounds so the under school age kids could learn and teach their parents how rail travel works. Yate having a near neighbour of Leyhill Open Prison could enlist the Prison Authority to allow prisoners under supervision to fit suitable/modify controls to synthesis engine noise/doors closings/next station announcements using a low voltage  (12 volt) power supply. The DfT^» (Department for Transport - about) are not that benevolent however to give the pacers away, to pay for low loader transport to a chosen location and make a cash contribution to enable the works I have mentioned to take place so they'll just send them to a recognised scrapyard and get their £100 a car scrap value and the vision of pacers will be lost forever.   

[grahame]

From The Guardian by Helen Pidd

It was one of those press releases so silly I had check I wasn’t about to fall for some ridiculous prank: could the department for transport (DfT^» (Department for Transport - about)) really be heralding an “exciting” new plan to offer northern towns the chance to bid for a knackered old Pacer train to turn into “a community space, cafe or new village hall”?

I refreshed my browser, checked the URL didn’t include the second level domain joke.uk, and gasped. It was real.

I know how she feels ... I had to double check too.

As a very regular rail passenger in the north of England, I often have the extreme displeasure of travelling on Pacer trains. Famously cobbled together on the cheap, using the shell of a Leyland bus welded to a freight wagon frame, they went out of service in the south-east of England many years ago, but the government has allowed successive private rail companies to keep them rumbling on in the north.

So "the north" looks to "the south east" with a degree of envy, and completely ignores the south west (and south Wales) where pacers are still running too.   That's how low a priority's been given to lines in our area that don't serve London!

And yet ...  what are people looking for?   Frequency, route capacity, reliability; more comfort and higher speeds but only as the journey length increases.  If you offered the people of my home town of Melksham a choice between the service proposed for 2020, and a regular service of these converted old buses from Swindon every 30 minutes, alternating services carrying on beyond Westbury to Southampton Airport and to Yeovil Junction, I suspect many would go for the latter.   It's purely hypothetical of course ... you'ld need to put in capacity relief between Chippenham and Trowbridge and take on further staff.   And it would be politically incorrect too ... it might work too well.   And anyone for whom the 07:52 is too early would far prefer to wait for the comfortable train at 10:22 with power points and Wifi than go up in the older banger at 08:22, 08:52, 09:22 or 09:52 wouldn't they?    Or on the way back, missing the 15:07, isn't it much better to wait for a nice train at 17:27 than have a converted bus at 15:37, 16:17, or 16:57 to take you home?

[rogerw]

I'm not aware that Pacers ever worked in the southeast

[ellendune]

Oooh! Oooh! I know! Please sir! We could convert them into... buses!

Or scrap metal

[johnneyw]

I have a bit of a respect for the role the Pacer played in providing extra capacity quickly. Without them I doubt if a lot of current services would have been achievable/sustainable for a good many years.
It seems a shame that at least some of them cannot find a use where there are still shortages of available stock. After all, an old Pacer providing a service is so much better than a non existent trainset providing a non existent service.

Off course, I know it's not as simple as that as there are servicing and gauge issues (among others) to take into consideration but at a time when rolling stock hardly in surplus, it seems a pity that they can't have a last hurrah somewhere.

[TaplowGreen]

Missile targets?

[broadgage]

Missile targets?

Not just yet I hope !
In the near term they are still needed to carry passengers, better a seat on a pacer than standing on something else, or no train at all.

When no longer needed I hope that a handful are preserved. Then the rest should be stripped of re-usable components before scrapping. Including use for target practice by HM forces.
Apart from preserving a few in running order, it is probably worth keeping a few for the film and tv industry to destroy in making adventure movies etc.

[grahame]

From ACoRP^▸ (Association of Community Rail Partnerships)

Community groups in the North can now submit their plans and ideas on how an old Pacer carriage could be converted into a vibrant public asset, as the Department for Transport (DfT^» (Department for Transport - about)) officially launches its Pacer competition today at Bolton Station (11 July 2019).

School children from St. Catherine’s Primary School in Bolton were among the first to pitch their ideas to Rail Minister Andrew Jones, as they drew up their ideas for how the Pacers could be useful in the future. Freya showed the minister her idea for the ‘time traveller train’, a museum and classroom where people could learn about the history of Bolton. Millie suggested using an old carriage for a kitchen and pizza stand, while Lauren wanted to convert a pacer into a greenhouse to grow vegetables.

[chuffed]

Get a few old pacers down to Bristol City Centre next week. Ask the XR^▸ (Crossrail) protestors to demonstrate how many can fit into a carriage standing..lock the doors and wait for the protests...and wait for them to pass out through lack of oxygen.