Connect the cars

Having read the excellent article on the subject of new Class 195 DMUs for Northern ( RAIL 831), I wonder whether someone at Northern could explain why they are specifying two- and three-car trains with no driving end corridor connections.

The current fleet of Northern Classes 14x and 15x trains are quite regularly coupled together to form four-car trains. And with increasing passenger numbers, I don’t see why this situation is likely to change even if there are more three-car units available.

When a Class 142 or ‘150/1’ unit is coupled in one of these pairings, as happens very frequently, their lack of corridor connection makes it impossible for the guard to serve the front two coaches.

My experience is that guards never transfer to the front unit at intermediate stations. As a result, tickets go unchecked and fares uncollected. In addition, in the case of an emergency in the front unit, the guard could not access it until the next station.

Why would you allow this situation to prevail in the new trains now being built?

When BR introduced secondgeneration DMUs it soon realised this problem. After the Pacers and the ‘150/1’ units were in service, subsequent Classes 150/2, ‘153’, ‘155’, ‘156’ and ‘158’ all had corridors and could all be coupled together.

This gave the railway managers flexibility in allocating trains to routes. Any transport manager will tell you that flexibility in operation of your vehicles or rolling stock is an extremely useful tool in resolving operational problems.

I do agree that full-width fronts are better looking and give a better cab environment, but I would have thought that the practical operating advantages of corridor connections would outweigh this. After all, with its large number of unmanned stations and booking offices with limited hours, Northern is heavily dependent on the guard to collect its revenue. Bill Lear, Hadfield