Great Western Coffee Shop

The first of the 150/1's (150125) arrived at spm last night from LM ready for a safety exam before being used in service it still carries LM livery and has the old 2+3 seating but overall the general condition of the set is very good.

Also 172004 has entered service today.The caption states "which will replace the current shabby Class 150 Diesel Multiple Units."
http://www.flickr.com/photos/juliang2006/4801870117/

the LO 150/1's are shabby but the LM 150/1's are in alot better condition probably as a result of the better maintenance at tyseley over the years

....which it has done and is currently allox 2C34 22:15 Bristol TM - Westbury.

Hang on, how can LM suddenly spare a unit? Are they going to short form a diagram during peaks?

Let's hope the LO service does't go above 43 mph - I've heard that they choke if any higher speeds are attempted!

God help you all

I spent five years adding 1 hour onto local journeys just to avoid them

Quite - the 172s are delayed, and are plagued with problems. They are going to have to rip out seats to sort it out. Overcrowding is already 116% on the Snow Hill lines; with 30+ fewer seats per train, and no extra carriages, this is going to become the new sardine express! Minus the express bit, as longer dwell times will cancel out any gains with acceleration improvements. (if indeed there are any!)

I wouldn't get too carried away. There are plenty of LM sets that are in the bag of spanners category, just lovely being shaken to bits climbing the banks on the way from Stratford into Birmingham,

Only one, as I understand it - the exhaust system.....
Chiltern's 172s massively delayed - a *start* on them isn't likely until the middle of next year....

LM can spare at least one unit, as they've had a 150 on loan to LO for the last six weeks.  That one may have been returned at the weekend now that the first 172 is in service.

Paul

The exhaust system is apparently causing excessive 'back pressure' at the turbocharger outlet which reduces the inlet manifold boost pressure provided by the turbo. The engine governor therefore cuts back the fuelling and by defenition the power output.  The long term fix is going to be remove the rather sinuous system currently fitted round the solebars at the back end of each coach and re-route it straight up through the saloon in a suitable duct (a la Voyager & class 185) which can be done with the loss of one seat.

150125 currently happily chugging off to Cheltenham (2E29) as I type this..
 ;D

150125 currently sat in spm as i left work this morning been out for two days with no fault!!!

London Midland no 150125 has been passed over to FGW for the Summer holidays. (I'm guessing this is covering one of the 142's going back to Northern?)

Thanks for the info 159james! In the interests of continuity, I'm going to merge your post into the thread we already have covering the arrival of the 150/1s at FGW  :)

No 142's returning to Northern at this point in time. I understand 150125 replaces 150281 which is returning to ATW.

150125 is quite a sprightly little thing too!
 ;D

Please read the thead before posting - we've been discussing this already....

Chris - I think some of the duplication has arisen naturally from merging two threads, rather than by anyone posting onto the end of this without reading what was already on the same thread.  ;)

Yes, I realised this after I posted....but I can't delete my own post (I think?)

Ah yes - we've had some issues in the past with people posting up a message, then when it's generated responses deleting it again - leaving the responses looking out of place, and making the respondent who followed up in good faith look like a bit of a twit when (s)he is far from that.

So ... at present members can't delete their posts, which could leave an undeclared gap in threads.  What you can do is to modify a post - we do have some similar concerns about changing the context of other posts by people doing this, but at least the changes leave a declared audit trail to show that the post was modified.

Well if it ain't broke don't fix it. And kindly don't tamper with the engine settings on it either as it is probably the nippiest 150 on the books by a fair margin...
 ;D

I notice SPM has been busy sending it to Penzance and also put it on the 0900 CDF Plymouth. Fun  :D

I hope they manage a better job than the Voyagers with that exhaust - travelling XC in Coach D the floor at the seats by luggage racks was at 40 degrees and a/c was going flat out to compensate for heat input at one end and bringing temperature down to discomfort levels of cold at the other end of the saloon.  Same in other coaches but 'hot zone' is a panel in corridor past the toilet.

A lot to be said for taking the detail from SWT refurbish of Class 455 (Mk3 suburban bodyshell) and applying this to 150 refurbs - wider door opening (so 2 rugby forwards can pass shoulder to shoulder through the opening) plus removal/reduction of draught screens at the end doors to create a clear and fast loading vestibule design.  Perhaps a UK-wide plan for a 'standard' 150 refurbishment plan to bring spares (seating doorgear etc) into a simpler and interchangeable stock of parts - perhaps sharing this with EMU's Class 317-322 and 455, and a review of combustion or retention toilets for retrofit.  (a combustion toilet -current models uses a supply of diesel plus a supply of electricity to vapourise the organic matter deposited - no retention tank, minimal smell, option to recover & use the heat for heating water to wash hands, and eliminates need for toilet drop sidings and operational, costs to service these and run trains to drop sidings).

it had a minor glitch last week with one engine RTI,apart from that i agree it is the best performing sprinter on the FGW books,although i would suspect it will soon come down to the level we are more used to if the work is being carried out by FGW engineering.

not only is it the nippiest i would also say it is probably the cleanest inside aswell,maybe Lm employ cleaning teams that actually carry out the PHC's etc??

When LM took over from CT, they actually started cleaning the trains. Being in a clean train was a novelty for a while!

Aaah so thats why the Webasto aux heaters on 14x / 15x blow out so much clag. All down to whether the pipework is connected up to the fuel system or the toilet downpipe, thanks for that!
 ;D

In the nicest possible way, please can we drag this back onto the topic of the arrival of 150/1 units at FGW? I'm happy to try and separate out the off-topic posts regarding Chiltern enhancements into a separate post so that you can continue discussing them, but they really don't belong here.

Let me know if you want me to attempt the split...

In the absence of any complaints, I have separated out the discussion about Chiltern's Evergreen 3 enhancements and the 172s which had arisen as a result of a couple of queries on this topic and assumed something of a life of its own.

You'll find the new topic here (http://www.firstgreatwestern.info/coffeeshop/index.php?topic=7250.0). I've had a quick read through and I think it still makes sense after the split.