Wednesday Not Much Variety

The Taster : Trace A Pacer

Above is Pacer 144001 at Filey. It wears the livery of "Metro", The West Yorkshire PTE. Later the livery was improved, i.e. made more dull by abandoning the lines of the vehicle in favour of meaningless swirls.

Its final paint job was the even less appealing blotchy Northern Rail mix of purple and blue wedges ...

... and white curly bits. Sadly (fbb was the only one who liked them - as built with bus seats from which you had the best view out of any train!) Pacers are no more. But half of 144001 has taken on a new life at Huddersfield Station.

It is based on the old Platform 1, the bay used by trains for Penistone until the station was re-jigged and they moved to a new Platform 2.

fbb is not sure whether the part Pacer replaces the blue-painted Mark 1 carriage or is in addition.

Whatever, the half-Pacer was craned in from the street alongside the former bay platform.

Steady as she goes, as the body is placed on piles of sleepers due to lack of wheels!

The blue buildings are Portakabins, but to their left we can see end of the blue coach.

Roy, having travelled from Sheffield, has sent a picture of the half in place ...

... viewed from Platform 2.

And our astute reader will have guessed where the other half has "showed up"!

There he/she/it is, arriving at Airedale General Hospital, Roy's destination on the Sheep Bus for Sheep Town. And here the half-Pacer being settled in its new home ...

... this time, sitting on its very own piece of track.

Roy sends back some detailed pictures from his visit, so you could learn to appreciate the beauty of a Pacer ...

... and even be reminded of at least one line that unit 144001 served.

In its new life at Airedale it will provide "space" for younger patients to have fun!

Kirsty Randall, matron on the children’s ward, said: “We’re really excited to have the Pacer train carriage onsite and can’t wait to start using it with our patients and their families.

“We’re planning on using the space for children and young people who need to be in hospital but not necessarily on the ward at all times."

And what could be more fun that "riding" in a Pacer, albeit stationary?

Thanks to Roy for setting up the story for fbb.

A look at the sheep-bus leaflet will now appear tomorrow, because ...

East Devon Cut-Backs Put Back

There was considerable anguish when Traveline South West published the withdrawal of buses to Honiton and Axminster, to Lyme Regis and to Pinhoe, Monkerton and The Exeter Science Park.

fbb's conclusion was that Devon County would find some tender money "down the sofa" and replacement services would be provided.

This is what has happened. As predicted in this blog Axe Valley Mini Travel will run FIVE return trips from Seaton to Lyme Regis and Stagecoach (Presumably, as it is they who have made the announcement quoted in the local press) will provide alternative services to Honiton and Axminster and, via a rejig of several Exeter City routes, will continue to serve Pinhoe, Monkerton and the Science Park. These revised services will now be subsided by the East Devon council tax payer. 

When actual timetables appear, fbb will reveal the detail. It may, yet, not be as grim a replacement as fbb at first surmised.

WATCH THIS SPACE!

Puzzle Picture

This is a Stagecoach service 200 at Woodford Halse at the western edge of Northamptonshire.

The service is hanging on by a thread of tyre rubber, namely a short-term tender until the end of the summer.

But the question fbb asks is this:-

What did Woodford Halse have that was very helpful, back in the day, for railway operation in the area? It was a fairly unusual railway facility available "in the sticks" of a rural county.

 Next Variety blog : Thursday 7th July