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.

GWR have put out a leaflet specifically for passengers travelling from Stapleton Road and Lawrence Hill to Bristol Parkway. Note that there will be easements for doubling back from Temple Meads to Bristol Parkway.

Problem of local trains stopping short of Filton Abbey Wood - update from Bristol shared with me

GWR have put the attached leaflet together and are working very closely with Network Rail to resolve, and they also have Meet the Manager events at both stations in the morning peak this week so customers are aware of the change.

To help GWR have a ticket easement allowing travel via Bristol Temple Meads, and the leaflet also details bus journeys through to key end destinations from Filton Abbeywood.

Apparently the London services and the Crosscountry services which are also an issue here, cannot be moved as they have to fit into tight slots at Paddington and Birmingham.  GWR had thought that they could still get their trains through to Bristol Parkway, but when NR System Operator assessed the paths their view was that they would not work. GWR reviewed each train as you can see from the leaflet they have together managed to find paths for several trains which do now go through to Bristol Parkway.  There is still an issue, especially in the off peak, but GWR have a ticket easement in place, and they will be happy to hear from customers to help find alternative bus routes to their final destination.  Network Rail Wales and Western are working with GWR on the solution and while this is not what either GWR or NR want to deliver in December, they are working hard to have a good solution in place in May.

Bus and train timetables at Barnstaple have been brought back into sync after commuters had complained of being unable to catch the morning train.

Changes to the December timetable by Great Western Railway for the Tarka Line service to Exeter meant bus passengers were unable to get to the station before the train departed.

Now Stagecoach South West has announced changes to its 21 service to ensure the two timetables match when the new GWR schedule begins on Sunday, December 15.

The problem was highlighted by a Gazette reader, who contacted us to say they had until now used the Bideford bus to get to the station in time for the 6.57am train.

The train timetable changes meant the bus would arrive too late to catch the first train and with a 'similar mismatch' for the second service.

Just out of interest, what happened to the forum software upgrade that was talked about last year.

19:32 Westbury to Cheltenham Spa due 21:33
19:32 Westbury to Cheltenham Spa due 21:33 is being delayed between Chippenham and Swindon and is now expected to be 6 minutes late.
This is due to animals on the railway.

Further to 5. above. It is cheaper to purchase split season tickets (trains do not have to stop at the splitting point for this type of split):-

14.2. If you are using a Season Ticket, daily Zonal Ticket, or another area based Ticket such as a concessionary pass, ranger or rover in conjunction with another Ticket and the last station at which one Ticket is valid and the first station that the other Ticket is valid are the same, then the train does not need to call at that station for your combination to be valid.

05:17 Gloucester to Southampton Central due 08:09
05:17 Gloucester to Southampton Central due 08:09 has been previously delayed, has been further delayed at Swindon and is now 15 minutes late.
This is due to a fault with the signalling system.

Presuming that your electricity is obtained from the grid, then some fossil fuel IS consumed and some particulates are emitted by the production of the electricity used by the server.
UK electricity is greener than that in many other countries, but by no means completely green.

Well now there's a thing - the only thing I knew for sure about the December Timetable changes was that nothing was changing on the Severn Beach Line... just goes to show how wrong you can be if you take your eye off the ball...

Something like has already been happening now and then in the day, with, for example, a DMU from Oxford preceding an electric train from Didcot by a handful of minutes. Of course, if the DMU is delayed, so is the electric train.

I am experimenting - 17:50 on 10.12.2019 .... please take copies of everything you post.