So today, I have been told that there are currently considerations for the Class 231 FLIRT's to make their way North of Cardiff towards shrewbury (exact route north of Shrewsbury unknown).
Could it be 'towards Shrewsbury' but not north of Shrewsbury at all?
AFAIK there were no plans to send 231s to Manchester but there was talk of getting them cleared to Abergavenny and potentially Hereford for event day additional turnbacks.
Getting them cleared for event-day extra services makes sense. Also, didn't some of the early Metro stuff talk about a new station at Caerleon served by local services between Cardiff and Abergavenny? Certainly I must have got the idea that they were considering such from somewhere, as I have certainly argued that these local services should run as far as Hereford (providing a wider range of 1-change journey opportunities thanks to GWR and WMT services at Hereford, and possibly allowing the Manchesters to run non-stop between Newport and Hereford).
The order for 231's and 756's were enough to cover the valleys services. The idea of the 197's is to cover the rest of the country (bar HoW and Borderlands). Maintenance, trained staff, not just drivers, station staff and catering facilities would all need to be sorted if they were to work anywhere else. I cannot see any logic to them working away from their planned routes, unless a small batch are procured for the Borderlines. 197's up the Valleys wouldn't keep time against an electric 756, they'd just get in the way.
What is the performance of a class 331 like compared to a 756? Because putting 197s on the lines you've just spent millions electrifying would make no sense, but if they were EMUs with battery capability (and I think a battery 331 was proposed for Windermere) and the Welsh Government starts to have some spare capital funding as their trunk road programme finally comes to an end around 2025 perhaps they'll be able to deliver more of the South East Wales Metro. The current core valley lines upgrade is only phase 2 of a much bigger vision, future phases could do alot more.
For example; keep the class 158s for the Cambrian and send the ETCS 197s back to Llanwern, convert them to class 331 driving cars (but retaining the gangwayed cabs) and build new PTS (Pantograph Trailer Standard) cars to complete the conversion giving you twenty-one class 331/3 battery EMUs to add to the Metro fleet (the extra mark 4s presumably means slightly fewer of the 3-car 197s need their middle car, so could give that up if you want some 4-car class 331/4s). Depending on which sections are prioritised for wires in the next phase of Metro, either unmodified class 197s or the 'new' (ex-197) class 331s could then be used on Cheltenham/Maesteg/Rhymney/Barry/Swanline services to cascade 197s/231s/756s/398s around to deliver the Metro extensions with minimal fleet expansion. In particular I think 756s should work Merthyr, Treherbert and Aberdare services (particularly given the planned extension of the latter to (and hopefully beyond) Hirwaun), and 398s should work Coryton services.
If you genuinely believe the UK government are actually going to electrify the North Wales coast line then I have a tower in Paris to sell you. Even if they did it would be a decade before anything ran.
This UK Government certainly won't, there's a General Election due in not much more than a year at most. A future UK Government might (and I hope they will) but, unless Network Rail find a way to electrify several miles a night, I cannot see any UK Government providing full electrification between Chester and Holyhead before KeolisAmey's franchise would have ended if it hadn't fallen to the Operator of Last Resort (Oct 2033 if I recall correctly).
Secondly I was told that the class 197s that are fitted with business class wine actually have it used as a business class area (so I assume it will be declassified) due to issue with access to a PRM toilet. Once again, another poorly thought out design choice it seems.
If you hadn't mentioned the bit about PRM toilets, I would have thought that could be 'temporarily declassified' since it originally appeared to be the intention to have first class on 197s declassified while units were delivered. Sometime in 2024, once the whole fleet was available, all the relevant units would have switched on-mass to having first class (there is a lease end date for declassifed units and a lease start date (the same/next day) for all the first class units in the early documentation from the KeolisAmey franchise).
However, it isn't just a PRM toilet that is not available for first class passengers in the class 197 design; there are no wheelchair spaces in the first/business section either (although there are priority seats).
Holyhead/Manchester is rather far for the FLIRTs unless North Wales is wired. The FLIRTS don't have the best diesel range
I understood the class 231s to be DEMUs with no pantograph, so presumably have been running full day diagrams on diesel since they entered service on the Rhymney line, and are/were planned to do so between Maesteg/Ebbw Vale/Cheltenham once they move there? Or do they only work half a day and swap over at lunchtime for refueling?
the 231s could be converted to bi-mode operation with relatively little difficulty.
I certainly hope so, but I don't think that has been officially confirmed.
