Back to the Future - Britain’s Railways Looking Forward

Changing Trains ISSUE 21 December 2022 www.guideline publications.co.uk

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f all the EMU types currently prowling the BR network few have excited as little interest as the nondescript 323s, a Class of 43 3Car units built between 1992 and 1995 and at time of writing subject to one of the most protracted ongoing cascades of recent years. Split between West Midlands and Northern, with 26 based at Soho LMD in Birmingham, and 17 at Allerton in Liverpool, the Soho allocation have been slated to move to Northern since shortly after the incoming franchisee announced the procurement of new Class 730s for London Midland’s smart green and black -lined livery is on its black-lined way out here in a pleasing weather-based metaphor that sees a formation in both old and new liveries, changing from green to brown just as the trees are doing likewise in this view of Gravelly Hill on 10 th October 2018. It’s just one year into the West Midlands franchise and the Soho fleet is very much in transition, with Cross City services throwing up a 50 – 50 mix of old and new colours. 323 205 is leading, with 323 219 bringing up the rear of this R edditch – Lichfield TTrent rent V alley Valley service.Gravelly Hill is approximately 4 miles north-east of Birmingham city centre and is chiefly known for the adjacent ‘Gravelly Hill Interchange’, Spaghetti Junction, which provides the intersection between the A38(M) Aston Expressway from the centre of Birmingham to the M6 motorway motorway.. This section of the Cross City line is well served, with four trains per hour each way throughout the day day,, alternating northbound to Lichfield TTrent rent V alley and FFour our Valley Oaks, and Redditch and Bromsgrove in the south. Cover: A Northern service pauses at Wilmslow on its way to Crewe with the southbound 2K35, the 11.01 Manchester Piccadilly – Crewe. 323 239 has charge, and is looking wellgroomed in its current Northern livery livery,, nicely complimented by the corporate colour scheme on the surrounding station, which has also adopted Northern ’s white Northern’s and blue. 323s share CreweManchester and Crewe-Liverpool services with 319s, although presumably the route will be their own after the W est Midlands sets West head North. 2

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Modern Railway Illustrated the Birmingham Cross-City line in late 2017. Due to enter service at some point in 2023, the arrival of these new trains will see the bulk of the Soho fleet transferred to services in Greater Manchester. It had been assumed that the new Civity Class 331s would see the back of Northern’s own 323 allocation, but this hasn’t happened, and what does seem likely is that the arrival of the West Midlands cast-offs will displace the unloved Class 319s in the north west instead. In real terms, the only difference anyone is likely to remark upon is the sudden presence of Tizer-coloured rolling stock running unbranded on the Manchester routes. It will be interesting to see how long it takes Northern to paint them. Not that there is anything actually wrong with the sets – they are typical highdensity inner-suburban stock with no frills, nor any real need for them, and apart from a sticky start their thirty-year service has been uncontroversial, but what is of interest is that they were all built at Hunslet’s factory in Leeds, and as such are the only main line trains currently operating that can claim such a distinction, although it would not be entirely correct to assume that they were

designed and built by the same company that brought us so many intersting shunting locomotives. By the time the Regional Railways sector of British Rail tendered an order for the new EMUs, the original Hunslet company had changed beyond recognition. In June 1990, the contract for the 323s was awarded to Hunslet Transportation Projects of Birmingham, a new company set up by a team of engineers and managers who had left Metro Cammell. The trains were designed in Birmingham, but built and fitted out at the Hunslet works in Leeds, and were among the last vehicles completed there before its closure in 1995. The Class 323s were initially beset with a number of technical problems that took several years to resolve, and the first set only entered revenue-earning service on 7 February 1994. Electric services had commenced on Birmingham’s Cross City Line on 26th November 1992, but it was not until 1995 that the 323s became reliable enough to operate a full service. All 43 were sold to Porterbrook in 1994 and allocated to the Central Trains and North West Regional Railways shadow franchises. In the North units were used to replace older Class Class 304 and Class 305 sets,

and have seen nearly three decades of use on the Manchester electrified network, primarily to the south of the city. At privatisation the Regional Railways North West franchise was re-branded North Western Trains, and inherited 17 of the class (323223-323239). North Western Trains became First North Western in 1998 and its operations were taken over by Northern Rail in 2004. All passed to Arriva Rail North with the franchise in April 2016, and then to current operator Northern Trains on 1 March 2020. The fleet is maintained at Allerton TMD, with units terminating in Manchester stabled at Stockport Edgeley carriage sidings, where they receive overnight cleaning, as well as Ardwick TMD, operated by Siemens, where they are washed alongside the Class 185 Transpennine Express fleet. Time passes. The new becomes old. Fewer and fewer second generation EMUs survive, but the 323s fall squarely into that time frame. They have a charm and character entirely their own, and there is very little else like them on the system. From a spotter’s point of view, Birmingham’s loss is Manchester’s gain. Long may they continue.

One of the busiest places to watch W est Midlands local services in the North of Birmingham is the two West two-platform station at Aston, high above the adjacent streets and a through route not only for Cross City trains, but also W alsall – W olverhampton services, as well as (at the time) diesel units beween Birmingham Walsall Wolverhampton and R ugeley ’s gloomy interior Rugeley ugeley,, offering a welcome chance to see green Class 170s outside of New Street Street’s interior.. The lines diverge in the background, the view looking North W est, with the Aston Expressway crossing in West, the distance. The line to the right carries the Cross City trains to Lichfield and Four Oaks, while that to the left continues through W itton and onwards to Bescot and W alsall. Witton Walsall. 4

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With its widely-spaced platforms offering fine views of the main line south out of Birmingham, Longbridge offers a rare chance to catch CrossCountry ’s TTurbo urbo units at speed on their Cardiff diagrams, as well as occasional freight and, of course, Cross City services to Redditch and Bromsgrove, or in this case terminating at Longbridge, although since 29 th July 2018, the trains that used to start or terminate here have been extended through to/from Bromsgrove, except for a small number of early morning and late night trains, following the completion of a scheme to extend the Cross City electrification from Barnt Green. 10 th October 2018, and a single 3-Car set clatters into Four Oaks station on its way from Lichfield to Bromsgrove. Four Oaks is the end of the line for northbound services from Redditch, which terminate in the bay Platform 3, with 1 and 2 usually handling through services to and from Lichfield. Four Oaks itself is described as ‘an affluent residential area in Sutton Coldfield, W est Midlands, lying along the north and West east borders of Sutton PPark ark ’, and with golf clubs encroaching on its other frontiers. The unit, 323 202, is ark’, newly redecorated in W est Midland’s orange/brown livery – a vast improvement over the original purple West showcased on one of its Class 172s earlier that year year..

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Modern Railway Illustrated A time-serving Northern set pauses at Ashbury ’s on 8 th September 2021. By this point in time the previous operator operator,, Arriva Rail North, had been stripped of the franchise and Northern was operating under the Government ’s ‘‘Operator Operator of Government’s Last Resort’. The Northern stock had all lost the dowdy purple and blue scheme by now now,, and the current blue and white sits well on what is actually a tidylooking unit, framed here by the old 1500 v DC catenary masts that were re-used when the line was electrified at 25 kV AC in December 1984. The unit is working a Manchester – Hadfield service, a route monopolised by the type since 1997, and one that has been graced with an interesting evolution of traction, from Class 506, through 303, 304 and 305, to the current incumbents, refurbished 2018 – 2021, and likely to remain in service for some time.

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The classic view of Manchester Piccadilly taken from Platform 13 on a February morning in 2018. The unit is working a service to Alderley Edge via Stockport. A Class 150 with a Buxton service can just be seen in the bowels of the station, while a Euston-bound PPendolino endolino can be seen, still in its red and grey Virgin livery livery.. All Class 323s received a full refurbishment between 2018 and 2021, which included the replacement of seat covers, interior and exterior repainting repainting,, the installation of a new passenger information system and wheelchair call-for-aid buttons, and the addition of an accessible toilet.

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