A third locomotive-hauled rake of coaching stock will be provided by Direct Rail Services to support Northern Rail’s trains on the Cumbrian Coast. There is no date for when the third rake will be delivered.
Northern Rail uses two rakes of four air-conditioned DRS Mk 2s on Cumbrian Coast trains, as well as to Preston and Lancaster. These release Class 156s to TransPennine Express, in turn enabling TPE ‘170s’ to move to Chiltern Railways. This deal was signed last year (RAIL 76x), and creates an additional 2.5 million seats per year.
DRS locomotive-hauled coaching stock sets were introduced last May, but there have been several failures, both with the locomotives and with the carriages.
- For more on this, read RAIL 793, published on February 3.
Keith Bradshaw (Copelamd RAil Users' Group) - 27/01/2016 23:58
Yesterday, 26 January, I arrived promptly at Preston Station to catch the 10.04 DRS loco-hauled train o Barrow, looking forward to the scenic and comfortable ride. In response to my question 'has it already gone' I was informed by VIrgin's man on the platform, that not only had it not gone,but it hadn't even arrived from the north, it had been cancelled. Naturally I assumed that the cancellation was due to some all too frequent loco-failure, but of course as I discovered later the landslip at Parton meant that neither the 0515 to Preston nor the 0842 to Barrow from Carlisle. Disappointing, but a least this time it wasn't the train that was at fault.