I've found two videos on the National Railway Museum YouTube channel telling the history of the Pacer train. I found them interesting and thought I'd share. Inside the Infamous Pacer: The Bus on Rails Commuters Loved to Hate | Curator with a Camera - YouTube The Leyland National: The BUS that Became a TRAIN | Curator with a Camera Extra - YouTube
The school in Kirk Merrington just up the road from me has a Pacer parked outside it. Granted this is in County Durham which is the cradle of modern railways (no matter what a few people in Manchester might like to think) but Merrington has never had a rail connection- the nearest railway would probably have been the colliery line to Leasingthorne. The school uses its Pacers to house a library. If you're interested: https://www.itv.com/news/tyne-tees/...acer-trains-transformed-into-a-school-library
Oh, that's DELIGHTFUL. When I was in my first couple of years at school, having already learned to read beforehand on a certain series of books we all know and love, the staff at times had to physically drag me out of the library, but if it was something like this, they'd never have been able to get me to leave in a million years! I might have to check how recent google's imagery there is, and add it to one of the streams I do in Google Earth VR for some friends every now and again, explaining stuff about the region's railway lines.
There have been quite a few pacers donated to schools or community projects. There's a pacer tucked behind the Penistone line platform at Huddersfield.
One more common thing that the pacer shared with the Leyland national was the gearbox an Automated manual similar to a Lorry and Danish IC4s. If the pacer were to be turned into a bus a spare DSB IC4 gearbox will fit it making it exactly like a leyland national.
Interesting, I always love to hear new railway history from different countries. I always thought Pacer Trains kind of looked like buses. I did not know they LITERALLY used to be buses. It is quite resourceful frankly.
They were supposed to be a cheap stop gap whilst other more suitable rolling stock cam along. Then they ended up staying for 40 years, almost double their planned lifespan.
Awful things. They were supposed to be cheap but were anything but. I think BR would have rather taken more Sprinters, but add in political factors.
2020 if I remember right, they were finally retired, 20 or so years later than they should have been.
They were fully withdrawn from mainline service in 2021. This ended their 35 year career but some still survive on heritage lines and LSL have 142002 which is mainline certified and done a railtour to Llandudno.
Good lord, that is a LONG service life. I'm pretty glad that a few remain for historical value, Maybe one day I'll get to see one in person if I ever go visit the United Kingdom again.
Nothing compared to the trains which were another BR stopgap of and still going (albeit in very reduced numbers in Scotland, though still for a mainline TOC) today: the HSTs.
Yes it is hard to think that, considering they were literally the face of high speed travel on the network for 40 years.
I like to think of the HST as the 747 of the Railways. The Boeing 747 was never really loved during early development because the Boeing 2707 (a supersonic aircraft that was never made) was supposed to be Boeing's next big thing. Then the 747 became the Queen of the Skies once the 2707 project was scrapped. Similarly, the HST was always planned to be overshadowed by the Class 370 APT, but when that failed, the HST ruled the Railways!
Read up on the Class 121 "Bubblecars"- single unit railcars comparable to the Pacers I suppose but introduced with the first generation of DMUs so late '50s or very early '60s. The last was withdrawn from network service only a few years ago! Even that pales in comparison to the Beattie 2-4-0 WTs built in the 1860s with the last three still in use on Cornish china clay workings in the 1960s! It's not that they were particularly brilliant locomotives, they soon proved inadequate for their original purpose as passenger loco's as trains got heavier, but they were light with a short wheel base which made them ideally suited for the china clay lines- in that respect there was just never anything better to replace them. Admittedly those last few survivors were from the final batch built in 1875 so weren't even 90 years old at withdrawal. They were the oldest design of locomotive still in service on BR but the oldest actual locomotives were Stroudly A1 "Terrier" tank engines dating from 1872. Another interesting example from the steam age is the NER E1/LNER J72 tank engines. The first batch was built in 1898 with further batches in 1914, 1920, 1922, 1925 (under the LNER) 1949 and finally 1950/51 the last two out-shopped by BR of course. There were some modifications but this was in the nature of updated fittings such as new types of safety valves and the sort of thing that would have and indeed mostly were fitted to the older loco's as they were serviced- the last locomotives were essentially built to the original 50+ years old design.
Bubble cars were withdrawn from service in 2017. Several survive on preserved railways though including 55032 (121032) which was used by ATW and Chiltern and is now at Wensleydale Railway. I have heard 121032 run and been in it. The engine is a Leyland and actually sounds very similar to the engine in the original pacer units albeit with a manual gearbox.
Don't forget the Tallylyn Railway. Its trains from the 1860s (50s?) are still in use and are doing as good a job now as back then.
I remember travelling on the buses the Pacer was originally based on as they were in service practically everywhere in the UK but may have only travelled on a Pacer a few times on what is the Tees Valley line in TSW. I only remember doing so because they were the same as the buses but have no distinct memory of the trains I travelled on at that time.
The last time I rode a train was a Class 122 on the Weardale Railway. The best feature of the Modernization Plan DMUs was being able to sit behind the driver which I did of course and grinned like a Cheshire cat all the way from Bishop Auckland to Stanhope. It was doubly nostalgic for me because the same unit used to run the "Dodger" service between the Junction and Town stations in my home town of Stourbridge when I lived there in the '70s and early '80s though I was never one to take note of numbers so I've no idea if I ever rode it then. These units did use 'bus engines and transmissions so perhaps they were more akin to Pacers than one might think.
Correct and that's a rack railway. Speaking of the Pacer prototype they were tested in Philadelphia in 1985 on the Fox Chase line
