Great Western Coffee Shop

Northern Rail, who are currently training their staff on 180s, will, from December, use one 180 on Manchester Victoria-Bolton-Preston-Blackpool services all day and another on peak time Hazel Grove-Manchester Piccadilly-Bolton-Preston services.  Northern are set to get three units, so one will always be out-of-use at any time and two will be out of use in the off-peak periods.  Depending on how well they perform under new management, they may be transferred to the National Express East Coast franchise in 2010.

Hazel Grove - Preston diagrams:

06:53 Blackpool North to Hazel Grove (arrive 08:45)
09:33 Hazel Grove to Preston (arrive 10:50)
ECS to Blackpool
ECS back to Preston around 14:00
14:23 Preston to Hazel Grove (15:45)
16:33 Hazel Grove to Preston (arrive 17:50)

Manchester Victoria - Blackpool North diagrams:

Seems to be 0718, 1120, 1520, 1920 from Blackpool. And 0922, 1322. 1720, 2122 off Manchester Victoria.

Hmmm, isn't it ironic that there will be 2 units out of use during off peak periods.....

A complete waste of the units when operators are desparate to get hold of them for the type of journeys for which they were designed. It shows what a shambles the rolling stock situation is when there is a desperate shortage of suburban multiple unit stock and yet only a handful of new units are authorised and under construction, over a year after the government trumpeted its "1300 new vehicles". 

One problem is so many trains have been made in 2 or 3 car combination.  Even the 185s that went to Transpennine Express were built as 3 car, with DfT ignoring the facts that showed enough demand for 4 car 185s.  Now it's predicted that the North Transpennine routes (Liverpool/Manchester/Man Airport to Hull/Scarborough/Middlesbrough/Newcastle) will soon have an off-peak capacity equal to 125% of it's seating capacity.

Also it is a waste for Northern to have a 5 carriage unit sitting at a depot in the peak periods.  Apparently, it's needed as Northern wouldn't be able to send a 142, 150, 153 or 156 to rescue a 180 if one broke down (no 144s, 155s or 158s are based in the north west), but surely a loco engine could be kept at a depot and the spare 180 could be in service at peak times.

Dont you mean WHEN!!!! ones breaks down......because that is going to happen for sure

Well the 175s were always breaking down when they were with First Great Western subsidary- First North Western.  They've done much better with Arriva Trains Wales, so maybe First Group wrongly assume that trains built after privitisation require no maintainence.

But throughout their lives the 175s have been maintained by Alstom, who built them, in a purpose-built depot at Chester. And their reliability had been improving for some time before Arriva won the Wales franchise. For whatever reason - smaller fleet? - FGW decided it would maintain the 180s itself.

By all accounts, Hull Trains are getting much better miles per casualty figures from 180s than FGW, perhaps because they are happier just hammering along flat out, instead of stopping and starting every 10 minutes, or might it be thanks to maintenance at Crofton depot - operated by Bombardier!