All Paced out- a final farewell to the railbus.

My introduction to the pacer, a class 142 in Reginal Railways colours stands atop the impressive viaduct at Knaresborough on 1st June 1999, taken by my dad. While it may not look it I am sure that I was fairly excited by both the pacer and my ice cream!

142055 in the gloomy depths of Manchester Victoria station
on 29th November 2008. This version of Merseyrail livery was
the closest I would see to my yellow Tyne & Wear model.

It was on a family holiday to Harrogate in Yorkshire that I first recall encountering a 'Pacer'. These railbuses regularly worked on the Harrogate loop and several would have been taken on that trip as we travelled between York, Harrogate and Leeds. I remember particularly enjoying our day out in Knaresborough, and more to the point, enjoying the railway there with its quaint stone station, semaphore signals, signalbox, manually operated crossing and attractive viaduct. It was quite a scene compared to the busy electrified commuter line into Waterloo that I was used to. The trains running were class 142 'pacers', something I recognised instantly as just a couple of years previously I had received Hornby's (1995/96) 'Twin Train Set' for Christmas with a class 47, and a yellow Tyne & Wear 142. Obviously living in the south I had never seen one until now.

Knaresborough again on 1st June 1999, this time with a three 
car class 144 in the original WYPTE livery.

You could say that on that day I developed a bit of an affection both for Knaresborough, and for the humble 'Pacer', the train which so many loathed but which I found characterful and just very different from the trains I was used to back home. It always felt something of a treat to ride them with their rudimentary bus seats, distinctive 'click clack' over jointed track, and of course the fact that simply being in pacer land meant I was far from home on an adventure. 

My first few years of taking a real interest in the railways, both on holidays with my family (who fortunately seemed accommodating with my requests to make the occasional holiday as some sort of pilgrimage by train) and my first few solo trips enabled me to see a good number of old BR liveries, which lasted well into the 2000's as well as many of the early privatisation liveries. 

One of the early privatisation livery was the bold colours of Northern Spirit, seen here on 142065 at York waiting to form a service to Leeds on 28th October 2004.

One of my very earliest railway photos, 142001, now preserved
as part of the National Collection is seen at Preston on 21st
February 2002. This was the only time I recall seeing a
unit in the grey red and white livery of Greater Manchester PTE.

The pacer was developed as a short term solution to replace aging and asbestos ridden 1st generation DMU's which were coming to the end of their lives in the 1970's. The fusion of a high-tech BREL 4-wheeled chassis with a relatively cheap body from the Leyland bus company, based on it's modular 'National' bus design showed promise for winning overseas orders, however despite several prototypes and many trials the UK was to prove the only customer. The first production design was the class 141, used by West Yorkshire PTE from 1984 - 2005 and were a class that I would never see in service. Two units are preserved while many of the 20-strong fleet finished their working lives in Iran of all places, ultimately the only Pacers to actually be sold to a foreign customer! 

Pacers on the English Riviera- 143611 works an Exmouth to Paignton service along the sea wall at Teignmouth on 5th May 2018. When new a batch of 142's were allocated to Devon and Cornwall but later transferred north when they proved unsuitable due to excessive track wear on the branches. A number of Pacers became based at Bristol and Exeter in more recent years, the GWR examples probably being the last units to receive a re-paint to spend their years in the new green livery.

143604 pauses at Cardiff Central with an evening service to
 Barry Island on 3rd December 2005.

The first real mainstream design of Pacer, and, in my opinion at least, the most iconic was the class 142  which was built to a wider body design to capitalise on the larger rail loading gauge compared to a bus vehicle. 92 of these Leyland / BREL build units were delivered starting in 1985 to various local transport executives. 

The final base design of railbus was the class 143 and 144. The class 143 was built by Hunslet-Barclay with a body provided by rival bus-builder Walter Alexander which went into competition with the Leyland design while the class 144 relied on a BREl chassis. The 2 car 143 went into operation in the north before transferring to Wales and the Westcountry while the 144 with both 2 and 3 car variants spent its life working around Yorkshire.

There are many resources which tell the full detailed history of the development of the Pacer railbuses and for those interested in the subject I recommend Eric Woodcock's informative story. 

When I travelled on 144021 on 2nd June 2004 it was running as a hybrid with a refurbished center car between two original condition driving coaches - a direct comparison therefore being able to be formed between the original 'bus' style seats and the undoubtedly more comfortable high back seats which were replacing them at this time.  

The exterior of the above unit showing the
non-refurbished driving coach again at
Knaresborough 02.06.04

As the preservation era continued Pacers were refurbished and re-painted in many guises across the areas in which they worked. All of the class 143 and 144's, as well as the vast majority of the 142's received new high backed seats to replace the original 'bus' style seats. This was a step change in comfort though I was always still pleased when one of the untouched originals turned up with the bus bench seats, some of which lasted right until the end. 

There were three main areas to see the Pacers in action in their latter years; right across the North of England operating for Northern Rail, with particular centers of activity around Leeds, Manchester, Sheffield and Newcastle. With Transport for Wales centered around Cardiff for use on the Welsh Valleys, and finally a small consignment with Great Western Railway based around Exeter (and previously also Bristol for First Great Western).

Another area where class 37's brought me into contact with Pacers was the Rhymney valley line in South Wales where loco hauled trains ran alongside the diminutive railbuses for many years. 143605 is seen in 'Valley Lines' livery approaching Ystrad Mynach with a service from Penarth to Bargoed on 27th August 2005.

A small number of ex-First North Western 142's spent a brief period
based at Exeter for South Devon workings. One such example,
142009 is seen at journeys end on 2nd June 2010 at Paignton.

By the 2000's when I was taking an interest the Pacers, built with a planned design life of 20 years, the units should have been well on their way to replacement. However there was neither the money or desire to replace such a large fleet of trains working on subsidised routes and the fleets changed operator, and livery several times during privatisation, mostly sticking to their traditional routes in South Wales, Yorkshire and the North East. 

By this time these quick fix trains were widely loathed by the passengers which used them regularly and promises were made by franchisees to look into their replacement with the Northern franchise in 2014 specifying the trains replacement as a condition. It was expected that widespread electrification would eliminate many of the trains, and render investment by ROSCO's into new diesel trains unviable, however when the money and schedules for these works slipped it was finally recognised that new trains were urgently needed. 

A surprise return to loco-haulage on the Rhymney line in 2019 brought me back to the South Wales Valleys where the pacers were also still plying their trade. Now with decals promoting their iminent withdrawal 142009 climbs up to Pontlottyn with a classmate on the 19th August.

143604 leads a 142 to Penarth from Cardiff Queen St on 6th
July 2018. Now working for Transport for Wales the units 
finished their lives wearing the livery of Arriva Trains Wales.

The final death-nail for the pacers was undoubtedly the disability discrimination act of 1995 which was to be fully adopted by the railways by the end of 2019. Trains would all have to be fully compliant and therefore accessible- something which the pacers were not. Despite the radical refurbishment of 144012 to prove compliance could be achieved, the days of the pacer were coming to an end. 

Delays in new stock gave the units what should have been a final stay of execution into early 2020, with derogations permitting pacers to continue running when coupled to other compliant units with final withdrawal of the 144 fleet expected before May. Then Covid 19 came along and space became a premium. Extra capacity was needed to allow for social distancing and the pacer was an obvious solution, the extra two coaches of a class 142 could be coupled to a compliant train to help passengers keep their space through the height of the pandemic.

The Pacers, and especially the 142's will always be known best for their services across the North of England. Now in the colours of Northern Rail, 142025 is captured just before sundown at Brough on the 28th November 2016 while working from Hull to York.

142021 attracts the attention of a fellow photographer at
Doncaster as it approaches its original withdrawal date. The
unit is working an Adwick service on 6th December 2019.

Not even the virus could keep the pacer running forever, and in late 2020 the last pacers are now terminating their final journeys. 

27th November saw the final pacer working for Northern, while GWR also ran their final class 143 in early December. The final Welsh class 142's will be withdrawn before 31st December when their derogation expires, however it appears the final active members of the class will now be the class 143's operating around Cardiff for Transport for Wales with a last minute extension of their derogation until the end of May 2021.

I, for one, will be sad to see them go. 

Many units have already been preserved, including 142001 for the National Collection. Heritage railways hope that the train that is hailed as the saviour of rural railways can also help to provide a cost effective option to allow more services to be run- only time will tell how leisure travellers will respond to being offered the 'worst train in Britain' as their heritage experience!

Back where my pacer adventure began, now on a digital camera and with me behind it, a class 144 in the attractive WYTPE scheme is shunting on Knaresborough viaduct 02.06.04 having arrived with a service from Leeds. After an early start from York I had picked up a sausage roll from the local bakery and was pleased to catch the pacer as a warm up shot while waiting the passage of the class 37's which worked a daily commuter turn from Knaresborough to Leeds for Arriva Trains Northern before continuing over the Settle & Carlisle railway.