Realistically, not everyone can have brand new trains. Someone's always going to end up with the older stock. And the best trains are always going to end up on the flagship, long distance routes. Trains have a designed life span of 40-50 years after all. Well except Pacers that were designed to last around 20 years but somehow are still going on... The other issue is that no one wants to buy diesels. it's seen as a dying technology. Why invest too much when you've other stock you could use until other technologies are more feasible.
That’s sadly the key point, if we want better rolling stock to Marple we likely now have to be pushing for electrification first. (Or hope hybrid/battery technology becomes much more standard) Glossop is a fully comparable line, but electrified, guess what… they’re getting brand new trains.
It is fair to say our line has been consistently bottom of the pile though. My entire life since the late 80s it’s never had anything but some of the oldest, least cared for stock. They ran the Class 101s into the ground until 2003 for heavens sake, and even now with crush-loaded Pacers no one is standing up and saying “hey, why don’t we try giving this line a step-change in its service and rolling stock for once in its life?”.
If I have any cynicism it's that I suspect is that Northern are doing its refurbishments on the cheap. The refurbished ones I've been on could have benefited enormously from new seats for starters. Just replacing the covering doesn't cut the mustard...
Agreed with that, no reason with modern design why a Class 150 has to feel like a bad train. The refurbishments are just totally half hearted and Northern seem insistent on the most bargain basement seat moquette possible.
Is this timetable on Real-time Trains set in stone though? I’ve been looking at Disley/New Mills Newtown because the line is meant to finally get 2 trains per hour, but it seems not all trains are appearing yet (either that or they’ll have the same number of trains with a really odd timetable).
Reading around rail forums online, I think they’ve still a few weeks to pin it down?