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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

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

From a usually reliable source (https://www.gov.uk/government/news/competition-will-breathe-new-life-into-an-old-pacer-train)

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) 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.

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.

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

Missile targets?

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) 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.

Get a few old pacers down to Bristol City Centre next week. Ask the XR 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. :o

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. 

IMHO they can keep the pacers on my line I use if it means they actually send a number of carriages that fit us all on.

I would understand keeping some as backups as new trains come on, I'd even be okay if they added more trains per hour.

Angel Trains has announced that it has plans to offer Class 142 pacer trains to heritage railways and the emergency services following their withdrawal from service with Northern.

The proceeds from sales to heritage railways and the emergency services will all go to charity.

The Class 142 Pacer DMUs were built between 1985 and 1987. Since then, they have been refurbished and upgraded to offer a low-cost solution to train operators and routes where otherwise they might not have a train service at all.

The Pacers are due off-lease from Northern imminently. Angel Trains has said that it recognises the need for modernisation of Britain’s railways and has said it does not have any plans to re-lease any Pacers to any other operators.

The leasing company has 83 x 2-car Class 142 Pacer units in operation and is offering a small number of vehicles to the below organisations

Emergency services – all proceeds will be donated to a charity of the organisation’s choice
Heritage Railways – all proceeds will be donated to Angel Trains’ charity of choice, Railway Children
Additionally, the National Railway Museum at York is to receive one Class 142, allowing future enthusiasts to look back on the importance of the Pacer.

All remaining trains that are not set aside for further use by emergency services, heritage railways or community railways will be scrapped.

Perhaps "top gear" might buy a pacer at scrap price, fit rubber tyres and try and drive it on a road ? No dafter than their famous "caravan train" episode which certainly made me laugh.
Steering would be an interesting challenge, but something could no doubt be improvised, perhaps involving separate brakes for the left hand and right hand wheels.

I know some people who run a glamping site near Evesham, with yurts and similar. One of their accommodation options is a converted box car. Southern Railway, IIRC. It looks rather nice inside.

Community groups and charities across the north are in the running to win a decommissioned Pacer train as the government run Transform a Pacer competition comes to a close.

Entrants range from radio stations to local hospitals and the winners will be chosen based on the benefits they can bring to the wider community. Ideas have included converting the carriage into a wildlife classroom to teach the wider community about the local environment, turning the carriage into a local heritage centre that will tell the story of the history of the railways in the region and a library’s fantasy grotto for children.

The competition is part of the long-awaited nationwide withdrawal of Pacer trains from the rail network after over 30 years of service.

Transport Secretary Grant Shapps said: "The winners of this competition will give a handful of Pacers a future serving local communities in a new and exciting way.

"The Pacers have served communities in the north for 3 decades. But in that time they have divided opinions and they have become a symbol of underinvestment in the north.

"As we level up the economy in the north we are phasing Pacers out completely, with the last trains off the network this year. Their modern replacements will improve journeys and create space for 40,000 more passengers."

Three retired pacer train carriages will be shared between community projects in communities across the north.

The vehicles will be repurposed into a range of projects and assets to improve lives locally.

The winners will be decided by the following judging panel:
Pete Waterman (head judge)
Tim Dunn (railway enthusiast, historian, broadcaster and presenter of Trainspotting Live)
Mary Grant (the CEO of railways rolling stock leasing company Porterbrook)
Jools Townsend (Chief Executive of The Association of Community Rail Partnerships - ACoRP)