2 Months – Just 2 Months. My summer was interrupted by inflamed knee and ankle joints. Then I got a very nasty infection – lots of green gunk proving it as being something that my body had to fight vigorously. That’s why you haven’t seen my regular Spotting posts and it has also played a part in the gaming side of things too. Maybe more about that in a future post.
Today I went out to visit the South Western Railway. Since I last visited, they have become the first of the privatised companies to be renationalised. That’s just the way the cookie crumbled – their lease term was running out. Others will be brought into the fold when theirs run out too.
South Western have been the scene of one of the most long running fiasco’s in recent memory – the delivery of the Class 701 units into service to replace the 40+ year old class 455 stock. This should have been happening from 2019 onwards but all sorts of issues were experienced, many of which may only ever become public knowledge in the distant future. I can recall two public launches of the class and neither resulting in any really largescale deployments of the type into service.
There had been a slow trickle of South Western’s Class 455’s to Sims in Newport over the last year or so – only those units in which corrosion was such that it was impossible for them to continue in service. The others had soldiered on – And you’ve seen that situation mentioned here often.
Suddenly – Post nationalisation – We find a situation where 701’s are being introduced at a rate of 1 per week! And, in order to make space for the new 701’s, there have been almost daily trips to deliver 455’s to the scrapyard. It’s amazing what a management shake-up can achieve 😅
Today I went out there… You know, back to the real world as I’m now starting to feel mentally and physically fit to do that. Wow, has it changed. After struggling to ever find a 701 to ride on, they’re quite common. That doesn’t mean they’ve already replaced the 455’s. I rode on several members of both types today. But I can report that the 455/9 Subclass has almost disappeared – Just 5 left in service of the 20. I witnessed one of them going off to scrap today while I rode on two others. Of those, 5911 took me back to Waterloo as I headed home…
…Until a couple of weeks ago I thought these units would still be working into 2026 – Now that looks less likely. I’ll try to do a fuller report of my recent outing in another post 😎
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