If the 14xs weren't built many lines in this country would have had to close. 14xs are cheap and saved many rural lines!
Might have to disagree about some of that.
By the time Class14xs were built closing Passenger Railway lines had become something of a political Hot Potato, the 14xs would have cost very little more if built with a shared Bogie in the centre like Many Tram systems have.
The additional Railware on some lines will wipe out the savings over the operation of the service by a 153.
BR▸ 's cost saving on Single lines such as Between Truro and St Austell didn't make the projected savings,
1st train failures cause massive more train delays than on Double Track and that costs big money.
2nd Railware on Single lines was expected to be double, nope, watch an engineer filing metal first you file 1 way then the other, Railware was more like 20 times that expected
[/quote]Whatever our personal opininons of 14x unit's we all know that they weren't the best unit's ever built, but, they are far from un-successful, so far they have performed relatively reliably in the North of England and the Valleys for nearly quarter of a century, and are set to carry on for a while yet! they are basic, rough and noisy amongst many faults and BR should have spent the little extra and built a load more 150's and 156's at the time, but BR are wonderful though if you listen to most people these days?? Since their introduction on the "Devon Metro" services it appears that the amount of cancellations due to train faults has gone down, well it certainly hasn't gone up. In a perfect world the 142's wouldn't have been built BUT THIS AINT A PERFECT WORLD SMOKEY!
Click on the map to explore geographics
