Pacer deadline
Goverment document reveals withdrawal dates for Northern’s entire Pacer diesel multiple unit fleet.
THE first Pacers will be sent offlease from Northern on September 15 2018, with the final trains released on October 12 2019.
In the franchise competition eventually won by Arriva, the Government had announced that the Class 14x fleet in use by Northern would have to be withdrawn, with the disabled access deadline of January 1 2020 acting as the catalyst.
The withdrawal dates were revealed when the Department for Transport released the Northern franchise agreement on March 1. First to be released will be five two-car Class 144s owned by Porterbrook. The final two-car ‘144s’ will be withdrawn on January 5 2019, while the ten three-car ‘144s’ (144014-144023) will be released on March 31 2019.
The first of Northern’s 79 Class 142s will be sent off-lease to Angel Trains on November 10 2018, when five sets are withdrawn. There will then be 19 sets withdrawn on December 8 2018, followed by nine on January 5 2019, ten on February 2 2019 and eight on March 2 2019. From then a gradual rundown will continue on a roughly monthly basis until the final two sets are withdrawn on October 12 2019.
Northern is taking delivery of Class 150s cascaded from Great Western Railway and London Midland, and there are plans for 24 two-car trains to be reformed as three-car diesel multiple units, with the toilets removed from the centre vehicles.
The franchise agreement states that 15 two-car Class 150s will be leased from September 1, with two more arriving on January 1 2018 and six on April 1 2019. The operator is also taking delivery of 16 three-car Class 170s cascaded from ScotRail. Their lease begins on July 2018.
Additionally, five two-car Class 156s are leased from January 1 2019, and 16 two-car Class 158s join the fleet on April 1 2019.
The introduction of the newer cascaded trains, as well as the delivery of 281 brand new vehicles from Construcciones y Auxiliar de Ferrocarriles (CAF) in Spain, will enable Northern to internally cascade Class 156 and ‘158s’ to other routes, and to withdraw the ‘14x’ fleets.
Also being returned to their owners are Class 153s, with the first due to go off-lease on April 29 this year, followed by seven on May 25 2019. More will be returned to their owners through that year, culminating in the final four being withdrawn on November 9 2019.
Electric multiple units are also being returned, with seven Class 323s returned to Porterbrook on November 10 2018, and the final ten on December 8 that year. Two Class 321/9s will be returned to their owners on July 20 2019, with the final set returned on August 17 2019. On the same day, the first ‘322’ will be withdrawn, followed by two on September 14 2019 and the final two on October 12 2019.
Finally, Northern will stop using locomotive-hauled trains supplied by Direct Rail Services on January 5 2019. Currently it uses two sets per day with one spare at Carlisle Kingmoor. These are formed of DRS-owned Class 37/4s, three DRS-owned Mk 2f coaches and a DRS-owned Mk 2 Driving Brake Standard Open (DBSO).