2027!?!?! That is a very long wait and a huge setback.... they're going to have to resolve that somehow...
Yep, rather crazy, if its problems with strength of structures then I'm not sure how they'll be able to do it sooner, we've seen how long its taken to get barmouth viaduct restored. Well I'm hearing it will be mid 2025 before we see 197's in service even on the cambrian mainline. I'm not sure exactly what the plan will be when 197's are running on the mainline and 158's on the coastline as they cant work in multiple together they will lose the ability to have direct trains from Pwllheli to Shrewsbury and birmingham. Maybe they will run some services on the mainline as 159's to allow the multipole working, maybe it will always be change at Mach. what I do also hear is that they are looking at running 4 car 158's again on the coastline this summer on select services. At the moment unit availabilty is a problem for doing that, but as more 158 diagrams are taken over by 197's that will free up units and might make it very viable. With the new timetable, provision has also been made for having 2 conductors on services when a spare is available (not just the 4 car services). Having 4 cars and 2 conductors will mean passengers should never get left behind like they do at times in the summer now whilst still being able to collect a significant amount more revenue to make that service provision more viable (and have TFW see reason to keep 4 cars running on the coast.
2027, good news for the haters!!
Suspect it’ll be 158’s up and back to Pwllheli with the 197’s working to Aberystwyth and passengers changing at Machynlleth.
Yes! I'm excited to work the 197's particularly to Birmingham, I'm not so sure about them on the cambrian coastline though. The 158's might be better suited to the work and better for passengers but time will tell, the 197's might muvh nicer.