The
key feature of these trains is that each carriage is on a four wheel chassis
with the inner axle (the non driving cab end) powered and the driving cab end
axle unpowered. These trains have divided opinion since the first examples were
built in 1984. The design was a low cost solution to the need to replace diesel
units dating from the 1950s on rural and suburban lines and was born as a joint
project between British Rail Engineering Limited (BREL) and Leyland Buses, the
former providing the chassis and rail specialist equipment, with the latter
providing the bodywork and engines. There were a series of prototype test
vehicles built between 1978 and 1984 with a body based upon the Leyland
National bus bolted to a chassis based upon a four wheeled high speed freight
vehicle, driven by a Leyland bus engine. The fruits of this research was the
first batch of Pacer units, the Class 141s, 20 of which were built for use in
the Leeds area, they were joined in 1985 by the next model, the class 142 of
which 96 two car units were built. These worked around Lancashire and Merseyside
with a batch going to Devon and Cornwall, where they became known as Skippers,
but the rigid wheelbase did not fit well on the West Country branches and the
units were relocated to Yorkshire after only a few years. Both the 141s and
142s were built jointly by BREL and Leyland; both nationalised industries, but the railway industry was being opened up
to private companies bidding to build stock and it was such an arrangement that
was responsible for the next batches of Pacers.
The
Class 143s were a fleet of 25 two car units built during 1985 and 1986. The
bodies had a far more modern look than the Leyland ones and were built by
Scottish bus builder, Walter Alexander at their Falkirk plant which were then
transported to the Kilmarnock works of Andrew Barclay (later known as
Hunslet-Barclay) where they were placed on the four wheel chassis built by that
company. The two cars had only one major difference between them with one car
having a toilet. Folding bus type doors are fitted either side of each end behind
the cabs with a single set fitted on one end of each car giving a total of
three sets of passenger doors on side of the two car unit. Each car had a
Leyland TL11 engine and a self changing gearbox for the driven axle. The first
completed unit rolled out of Kilmarnock painted in the then new British Rail
'Provincial' livery of all over pale be with a white stripe below the window
line on each bodyside and a thicker dark blue stripe below that. Cab ends were
standard warning panel yellow with the coach numbers and the BR arrows logo in
white on the dark blue stripe. The six figure unit number was on the front in
black below the driver's window. They were numbered 143 001 – 143 025. The last
six of the class 143 020 – 143 025 were sponsored by the Tyne Passenger
Transport Executive so they were painted in a livery very similar to the Tyne
& Wear Metro cars with the lower bodyside in yellow and the upper bodyside
in white, a mid blue stripe separated the two but the yellow cab ends were the
same as the blue units. Like all Pacers the seats fitted from new were basic
bench seats of the types fitted to buses. The whole fleet was delivered to
Heaton depot in Newcastle and they were put to work on services from Newcastle
to Sunderland, Hexham and Carlisle. There was one more class of Pacers built
during 1986 and 1987 classified as the Class 144s. These also had Walter
Alexander bodies and looked identical to the Class 143s, the difference was the
chassis which was built by BREL. There were 23 of the 144s built with the final
ten sets being three car units with a non driving car marshalled in the middle,
these were built after all units had been completed as two cars and were added
later. Al of the 144s went to work in Yorkshire.
Pacers
of all types suffered initial teething problems. The four wheel chassis had a
rigid wheelbase and was not best suited to curvature on some country branch
lines and gave a rough ride on some lines that had jointed track, but the 143s
and 144s had an improved suspension and were not as rough as the earlier
designs, but the bench seats could not have helped with passenger comfort. The
engines and gearboxes on all types were problematic and it was not uncommon for
a loco and coaches to be often called in to cover for a failed Pacer. From 1989
the whole fleet of Pacers, with the exception of the class 141s, had new engines, a Cummins L10 six cylinder
unit, along with new final drives made by Voith installed. This had a dramatic
positive effect on reliability. Initially the Tyne & Wear batch of 143s
were not to be modified so they were renumbered so they could easily be
identified as such, this was done by changing the fourth digit of the unit
number from a zero to a three so these units became 143 320 – 143 325. Just to
confuse matters the other 143s that had received new engines and final drives
were renumbered by having the fourth digit changed from a zero to a six so they
became 143 601 – 143 619. In due course the Tyne & Wear units were modified
and were renumbered again to become 143 620- 143 625. By the time this was
completed it was decided to relocate all 25 units to the West Country and South
Wales and this took place during 1991 and 1992 with the whole fleet being based
at Cardiff Canton Depot. They settled into use on the Valley Lines around
Cardiff to Treherbert, Merthyr Tydfil, Bridgend via the Vale of Glamorgan,
Barry Island and Aberdare. On occasions they went further afield to Pembroke
Dock, Carmarthen and Fishguard Harbour. They also worked the Bristol area
reaching Taunton, Severn Beach and Gloucester. A change of livery coincided
with the relocation when the whole fleet gained Regional Railways livery with a
rich blue on the upper bodyside with light grey on the lower body with a light
blue and white stripe separating the two below the window line. The full yellow
ends remained with black around the cab windows.
Privatisation
saw the units first come under the Wales & West franchise which gave way to
Wessex Trains in 2001. In 2006 The fleet were split between two franchise
operators due to a re-organisation. Fifteen units went to Arriva Trains Wales
and the remainder went to First Great Western. The FGW units were allocated to
Bristol St Phillips Marsh Depot and worked routes not only in the Bristol area
but started to reach Exeter and the Devon Branches to Exmouth, Barnstaple and
along the sea wall to Newton Abbot. This was only eight units as two 143s had
become casualties to accidents and were scrapped in 2004 and 2005 respectively.
Thus the 143 fleet remained more or less this way apart from the GWR units
being used exclusively on Devon branches out of Exeter and the Wales ones
sticking to the South Wales Valley lines out of Cardiff. Changes of liveries
came and went during privatisation and the 143s lost the infamous bench seats
during a heavy refurbishment that saw far more comfortable full size seating
installed.
A
change in legislation requiring passenger trains to have certain levels of
accessibility for persons of restricted mobility became law in 2008. This gave
the main line operators until January 1st 2020 to make changes to
their fleets so they complied with the new regulations. The Pacer fleet had no
universal access toilet and the step up from the doorways into the passenger
saloon was another area they failed to meet the standard. The industry had two
choices, either a full rebuild of the fleet or replace them. A single two car
144 unit was rebuilt as a demonstrator to show how a Pacer could be redesigned
to be compliant but as the type had already exceeded its intended design life
the decision was taken to phase all Pacer units out ahead of the deadline. The
delivery of replacement stock took time and both GWR and Transport for Wales
were given extensions to operate their fleets into 2020. GWR ceased Pacer
operation in December 2020 but TfW were having teething problems with their new
stock and obtained a further extension up until the end of May 2021. This was
the last such extension and the Pacers, despite being designed as a 15-20 year
stop gap came to and end having clocked up 37 years of front line operations.
The 143s were the last type to operate and they had achieved over 35 years of
service.
