I generally agree with you, but for some weeks the GC feed was completely empty if you did not have a Twitter/X account. I reported this to them and after a couple of days the feed showed 5he current info where the most recent was from 2020.
I thought the same as you, but having just checked - if I view the account from a browser where I'm not signed into Twitter, the most recent post is from 2020 confirming the Blackpool route would not go ahead. If you look when signed in, everything is there.
This is a fairly recent change to Twitter / X policy.
There's a lot of Facebook pages that businesses and organisations have that are the same.
Especially when you consider that such an attitude is equivalent to "if you want to find out about our services, you'll have to agree to this other company's terms and conditions too".
The replacement of the reservation system to just being paper tickets feels like a big step back, hopefully the on train system will be used eventually (especially if they get more 221s).
It’s not a step back from anything as 180s don’t have electronic reservations either, which is the reason these are paper.
Always funny how new/hiring-in TOCs vary with branding. Some are sloppy and leave the old TOC’s logo on, others rip it off but leave a blank space, others rip it off and replace with the new, and it seems some rip it off and shove some on the windows.
Interesting, the orange and dark blue can probably pass as ‘GC enough’ to the casual observer (I just wish they’d get that great livery all over the sets!).
I still think that the class 221's should be cleared for Mirfield, Brighouse, Halifax, Low Moor and Bradford if they aren't already. Faster the better, as I'm getting fed up of rocking up at Halifax or Brighouse and finding that its been cancelled.
It isn't really up to GC what happens to the 180s, outside of how they choose to use them. Even then, they'd probably need the consent of the owner to make any significant changes to maintenance regimes. Given that the units aren't wanted by anyone else, there's probably a fair bit of wiggle-room with how the units are used. It could well be the case that storing or scrapping the worst vehicles would improve reliability, but the best option to reduce failures might well be to get them all in decent order then modify the diagrams so that each of the units aren't worked so hard. GC now has the whole fleet (minus two in storage as mentioned below), so working each unit less hard may well prevent some of the breakdowns- especially with the 221s now available to bear some of the workload.
GC only has 12 - the other 2 are in storage at Ely, not being deemed as fit for service as the others
Thanks for the correction. If we assume (for the sake of argument) that the two in storage become spares donors in order to improve the reliability of the active dozen units, this could improve GC's performance overall. It's not as if there are lots of operators clamouring to take those two units on.
There was 3 in the storage area at Ely earlier today.
111 must not have made it in the end - that one and 110 were the only two of EMR’s lot GC were due to take on.
I believe it’s more that there isn’t enough crews that sign them yet to cycle them on full diagram's rather than them not being signed off on the route. (221s have already been to Bradford Interchange on proving runs).
On the Anglian Angel tour last Saturday (September 9th), there were 180 109, 180 111 and 180 113.
Currently sat on Bounds Green viewable from passing trains
Yes, I believe 111 was timetabled to transfer over at one point but never made the move from Ely.
Although at least today it's starting/ending at Wakefield again
Oh that's odd. Seemed to run through Saturday. Crew issues?
