As I'm sure you know the Class 142 'Pacer was built from 1985 - 1987 and is one of the most hated trains in British history. There have been 90 142s Pmade with 35 being preserved and the other 60 being scrapped. In the comments I want everyone to put something kind about the pacers. I've seen a few in Eastleigh works but never been on them. How bad can they be? Plus why would some be preserved if they're absolute trash. Waiting for everyone to hate on the pacer in the comments...
I found an abandoned 20 week old puppy under the seat of a pacer in the 80s and after taking him to the vets and trying to find the owner we eventually adopted him as the family dog and he lived for 16 years. If that Pacer didn't arrive that day we would never have had him and he may have died. For that I will always have a soft spot in my heart for pacers!
I don't like Pacers after hearing about them, but... When I first saw a picture of them (never seen one IRL ever) I thought they looked cool; Pairing a bus' body to a wagon's chassis sounds like a genius idea (that I didn't believe when I first heard about it in a documentary); They give me a good talking point when someone says "Trams are buses on rails" and then I can go "Well actually..."
I met my soon to be wife on a pacer 10 years ago so I mean suppose that’s a good thing about them. On the other hand when I was on one I was going to stand up to let an old person stand up and the train jolted which bashed my knee against the chair and has cause a once forgotten football injury to curse me issues most days since. Luckily these were my only two trips on a pacer one one way the other the other way.
Love them or hate them, they are an iconic part of UK rail history and in the mid-80’s when Provincial aka Poverty Rail was on its knees probably saved many lines directly or indirectly from closure.
The pacer had character, I’ll give it that. I used to have to travel on them fairly often for part of a journey and they always used to be dirty, noisy and full of rattles. It was always a relief to get back on an HST. However, I still think they are an iconic train of their time. Memories of the bad points fade and for some reason I have a certain affection for them. Hopefully there is a new enhancement pack out soon for TSC, so I can run them in the correct liveries. It’s also one of the few trains I have a Hornby model of.
I'm not fond of the Pacers personally but they had a sense of character to them that is unique to the whole subclass, which I'm sure will be missed
They might be in tsw. https://forums.dovetailgames.com/th...d-in-the-just-trains-route.71286/#post-673234
I'll be getting up close and personal with some pacer units very soon as I'm going to be volunteering at Wensleydale Railway and most of their services are run by pacers. I was up there yesterday for an induction whilst one was running (a 142) and the sounds just brought back memories of them. I don't think they are as bad a ride on preserved lines due to the max speed of 25mph but they were bouncy, noisy and horrible on mainlines at 75mph.
That´s so sweet! And a classical example of good memories wiping out bad memories. Just like first time ´make-love-in-car´ was done in a Trabant. And I really hated that car...
To give my opinion. They served as a stop-gap, which was their original purpose anyway. Otherwise we would have ended up with aging and unreliable trains, or services would have been drastically reduced and possibly scrapped altogether
I like them, rough & ready great thrash, good looking, commuted on them loads a decade ago, specifically the 142s for which I'm excited it's coming to TSW. I get the same feeling when I see people saying the 460 is ugly, I strongly disagree and don't get the hate when things like the 196, 717, 385, 745 exist, subjective I grant you, though if only one of those had been saved.
Haha yes very much so. I have always disliked the looks of the MKII escort estate and it had a very nightmarish engine but I don't look back at that car with a lot of fondness for no reason! Strange how one positive experience wipes out all the negatives really.
Haha thanks but there is still a month to go before the wedding and after some of the stories some of the forum members have I don’t know if O should go ahead!!! In all seriousness I am very much looking forward to it though!!
The Pacers served my local station for my entire life up until 2021. I'll never forget the sense of dread that enveloped me when I saw one rounding the corner coming into Merthyr Tydfil, and the realisation that to get to Cardiff I'd need to spend an entire hour on one. There was never a greater incentive to use the bus (ironically). It's been two years since I last saw one and I don't miss them a bit. I have never disagreed more with something on these forums. The 142s were hideous, the 745s aren't especially good looking, but they're on a different planets compared to the pacers.
The 143s weren't terrible looking at least, but little better to ride. Another point against them- when I was little the windows were too high for me to see out of. Never liked them even then.
I've a personal connection to the 141, 142 and 155's. My father was the Leyland systems Director for the railbus projects. I still have fond memories of charging through the sets on the production line when the factory was quiet. I'd cabbed them all before they were even in service! I have a plethora of materials he collected, everything from original blueprints to actual marketing materials. I'll be happy to see a pacer if only for sentimental reasons.
They were also exported from the United Kingdom into the United States some of them entering service in the Philadelphia area Fox Chase to Newtown Pennsylvania part of the R8 Chestnut Hill West to Newtown via Fox Chase unelectrified section. There might be a movement for the Pacers stuck in the United States being repatriated back to the United Kingdom. Link is RM United Kingdom for Pacers in the United States and Canada followed by the 1986 Vancouver British Columbia area run. Two things to describe them is that they are the British version of a Denver Rio Grande railroad Galloping Goose and followed by them being the British version of a West and East German Schienenbus DB Baureihe 796-798 & DR Baureihe 171-172.
I rode on them a few times....sure they were bouncy and loud but it was an experience. I quite liked the bus doors.
Here's a bit of Pacer action from yesterday on the Wensleydale Railway (my personal video). Pacer 143623 at Bedale sporting the Regional Railways livery (just recently finished). Bedale Pacer Bonus at the end of the video is 37250 pulling back into the station at Leeming Bar after being reversed over the crossing to allow 143623 into the platform. I forgot to film the triple lash up of Pacers passing through Bedale back to Leeming Bar earlier in the day as I was doing some safety training at the time. Also, I was privileged to go have a look inside the shed whilst I was there yesterday and I got to see LEV1 (Leyland Experimental Vehicle number 1) up close and it really is just a bus on bogies. The driver cabs at either end are exactly the same as on the old Leyland buses.
who would of thought a leyland national bus would become a train thank god they scrapped this god awful train says a person that hated the pacer but i love theses trains to bits just like the class 483 back when they were in service they were dubed the bone shakers but the real bone shaker was this train thats why i love them and would like to drive them on a preserved line
The other thing I remember about Pacers was a very distinctive smell, especially inside - not your normal diesel aroma more foisty than that.
[/QUOTE] The Wensleydale Railway in North Yorkshire offers a driver experience using a class 142. They run these on Thursdays between late March and the end of July and also September and October. It's £275 for about 2 hours (once up and down the line) and includes you being able to drive the train under supervision/instruction between Bedale and Leyburn and back, 1 years adult membership and lunch with the crew (driver and guard/secondman). The experience lasts 2.5 hours including the lunch with the crew in the buffet coach at Leeming Bar. There may be a few other UK heritage railways which offer the experience. They still smell like that. I was in the cab of one just having a look last week and that's the smell I was greeted with.
Back in the 1990s, I used to use them to commute and use them for leisure the 142s. They weren't great but they served a purpose! The traditional bus seats were fine. It was the "Northern Spirit" seat mods that made them uncomfortable. (they tried to put individual seats opposed to the bus bench seats). I think they tried to make them more comfortable for the longer distance work they did at the expense of the commuter routes they also worked on. (And failed)
I've never been on a Pacer mainly because I didn't grow up with any on my local services in London but also as my love for trains is only a relatively recent experience so would of been nice to see if I've own experience would of matched the widely reported nature of them being rather hated trains. However, my main hobby is buses and I've most certainly rode some Leyland Nationals (even if only in preservation, all my local bus routes in London was double deckers) and the Leyland National is an excellent bus that served many operators well across the UK and the bench seating in particular has always been popular with bus enthusiasts so it's interesting to see how well it worked with buses and how very debatable, you could say, it worked with trains
According to Railway Herald, Pacers will return to the mainline on Tuesday. https://www.railwayherald.com/railtours I would assume these are owned by Locomotive Services Limited and are returning to Crewe after repainting at Eastleigh.
I wonder what LSL are doing with a Pacer? Apparently it's 142003 and has been repainted into an original GMPTE livery.
Pacers are terrible they were noisy they were ugly and all round terrible units and the reason so many have been preserved is they are cheap and it is only preserved lines that are trying to get going that have them as the do not take a lot of maintaining and do not take up a lot of space.
Was waiting for someone to hate on them! Was inevitable! Still more people respect them then I thought!
In the comments I want everyone to put something kind about the pacers. There is nothing kind to say about them.
Well there's 25262's answer. Crazy how one minor thing if like can impact it the way it did like in your case!
I wonder who my comment earlier in the thread was aimed at??? In all seriousness thanks mate, I am looking forward to it!!!!
