First Northern Pacer taken for scrapping, with dozens to follow

The scrapping of Pacers has begun, with Northern 142005 moved by road to C F Booth’s at Rotherham for disposal. This was a two-day operation (December 3-4).

The ‘142’ was the first to be stood down by the operator, in August. Since then 18 classmates have been taken from traffic as CAF Class 195 diesel units replace them.

On December 3, Northern confirmed that 55 Class 142s would be withdrawn by the end of the year, a figure lower than intended.

When Arriva took over the franchise in 2016, it declared it would rid itself of 102 Class 14x Pacers by the end of the decade. However, delays to the introduction of new trains, combined with delays to electrification, means that 23 Class 144s and 11 Class 142s will be retained. A further 12 Class 142s are to be kept in ‘warm storage’.

On December 3, Northern confirmed that the handback of Angel Trains Class 142s had begun, with nine moving to Worksop over three days, for temporary storage. The first three officially handed back were 142016/022/025. These were followed by 142037/052/064/088/093/096. All had been in warm storage at Heaton.

• For the FULL story, read RAIL 894, published December 18, and available digitally on Android, iPad and Kindle from December 14.