Pacers: The End

You may well be right Tom, but of course you could say the same thing about a Routemaster bus, and I doubt too many would say there should be less of them.

 

Praise the Lord.

 

For the Foxfield pacer would be ideal for the Kent and East Sussex Railway. So I am going to use that Hackneyed expression, "Colonel Stephens would have used one".

 

Indeed. The bodies for station shelters, engines for generators, and the frames for bridges or water towers.

 

Should definitely be less of them! I worked on many in my days as a professional bus restorer and they are complex machines, with a number being poorly maintained. They also don't take well to not being used regularly.

 

That did make me chuckle. Colonel Stephens would have done exactly the same!

 

Can you imagine a 142 on Tenterton Bank!!!

 

Yes, because I have travelled out of Bradford Interchange on one. The experience was made more interesting by the rain inside the unit.

 

That’s a wet dream for someone!

 

Some of the first generation BR diesel rail-buses survived into preservation, including a couple on the K&WVR. Are they still used?

 

One used to be on the NNR c. 1980 as I had a ride on it, I'm sure. I think it was one of the W&M machines of which four survive and as you correctly say, two are at the K&WVR (according to the UKPRSL) - E79962 and M79960. The same source also suggests that two of the AC Cars ones exist.

I did have the idea of a 'Pacer' chassis being used as the basis for a re-creation of something early, but that'd be silly...

 

My father travelled on one of the Colonels Railbuses on the Selsey Bill line

 

There was one I noticed in service on the Haworth webcam a couple of Sundays back.

 

Was there a single vehicle version of the 'Pacer ' ( even as a prototype )? Cant imagine it being too difficult to make one if that met the needs of a particular railway better ...

 

Several actually.

http://www.traintesting.com/LEVs.htm

LEV1 is at Wensleydale, R3 is in Northern Ireland, RB002 is in Ireland, and RB004 is at Whitrope.

 

I think readers of this thread asking about further details for the surviving First Generation railbuses and Second Generation prototypes will find this page (and associated links) useful:

https://preserved.railcar.co.uk/DRB.html

Sent from my moto g(8) power lite using Tapatalk

 

Looks like your wet dream would be fulfilled, then.

 

You don't need to preserve a Pacer for that experience; a Co. Donegal railcar will do for that.