In the pre-arriva days, they used to run a 153 from Holyhead, to Pemroke Dock, via crewe and cardiff and took about 5 hours. Since I lived in HH and had to work out of pembroke dock some weeks I had to use it several times and it was hell.
By comparison a 158 Aber to Marl would be luxury.
it must have been in BR days and
it takes a 175 over 5 hours just to Cardiff, then another 3 hours on that
to Pem dock, FNW never sent a train south to my knowledge.
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I didn't know there were any direct North-South services before Arriva's time. Do you have any more details?
I can recall a couple.
1.27 years ago, I used to catch, the 1820? one a day loco hauled service CDF to Holyhead via Crewe, I have no idea how it went back to CDF, its stock had
WR on the carriages, pulled by a class 40, this was at the same time all CDF Manchesters were loco hauled, I always took the car from Shrewsbury home.
Several of us soon learned, The Welsh Office Minister was Wynn Roberts,who lived in Aberconwy and was MP for Conwy and on his late afternoons in Cathys Park wanted something better to get home than a Ministerial car,however I recall him always taking a Ministerial car from Conwy to Runcorn to catch a London train, asked why by a colleague, he said"Its quicker than
getting a London train from the Junction"
So a kind of early "Gerald Wag Express" so to speak.
2.Another attempt by Politicians to run a railway was the Direct CDF to Holyhead Wales & West 158 two coach DMU, WAG paid £1M to have this train
run via Wrexham for a years trial,at the Time Local M.P. & A.M for Wrexham was John Marrick sponsored by the NUR (now RTM), to shut him up, this
DMU run was commenced, 0700 ex CDF into HLD six hours later, having called
at every station Shrewsbury to Holyhead, including the crazy Junction/Llandudno/junction triangle, due to its time scale, it was only seen as a local, non of my colleagues would use it, the service was pulled after a year. Oh it returned ex Holyhead,same route around 1400.
On another point, I notice in the ATW media release, only two 158s are
mentioned to/from London, the consultation paper of last January,offered
a summer service to Pwlhelli & a service from Shrewsbury to London plus a Sunday service also starting at Shrewsbury, these seem to have been dropped.
It is still my opinion that if the All Wales Franchise, does in fact have extra capacity, this could & should be used within the franchise area
to at least attempt to solve the chronic overcrowding of trains in the North
or run them in Mid Wales, what happens if & when a 158 fails between say
International & London, who tows it back, Wales & Borders on their attempt
to run a 158 Manchester to Waterloo service via Shrewsbury & Newport, found units failed often, I recall a programme on BBC about the problems
with WAGN showing a failed W&B unit in a siding in the South east & the
MD of WAGN playing hell about it holding up his trains. This attempt by W&B
was also pulled as a failure, as were FNWs attempt to take on VT with services to Euston when they hired in old Stanstead Express stock.
As the idea is with the ORR, we shall see the outcome.
