142s now in Northern Rail Livery
 

I noticed this morning that the 08:05 Chester to Manchester Piccadilly service consisted of two 142s joined together with the front one being a former First North Western one thats been painted in Northern Rail's dark blue and purple livery.

This isn't a good sign for people who hope they will be replaced soon.

Apparently it'll be 2011 before they're all removed from service. However, they are supposed to be 24 being replaced by Sprinter trains on the Northern network. Though I would have thought that Northern would only repaint 142s if all the 150s, 156s and 158s were in Northern livery which they are not.

Northern have had 144s in 'Northern Livery' for a while, but I haven't seen a 142 in Northern livery.

I think they only repainted the 144s to show that they were running the Metro trains in West Yorkshire.

The 144s (which were previously red and grey) have just had the middle painted blue with the wording 'www.northernrail.org' added at the bottom. So they are now grey, red and blue- not a good choice of colour combination!

Sorry the original message is slightly misleading. It’s was a Mersey Travel 142 that was used by First North Western that's been painted in Northern's livery. However, is no longer sponsored by Mersey Travel as they are now sponsoring 156s instead.

I don’t carry a digital camera around with me, otherwise I would have tried a get a photo to put online.

See my seperate post regarding 142's on the modelling thread. Here's 142043 at Chester on wednesday:

http://dave420.fotopic.net/c1354250.html

I went walking through Delamere Forest today and noticed a number of trains being worked by 142's in the new Northern livery. One Chester-Manchester service consisted of two Northern liveried units coupled together. I hate to say it but I thought they looked quite smart:D

I quite like 142 units and iam made up when i see them looking very Smart in Northern Livery.

It was only the other night that i was spoilt for choice as the 20.55 from Liverpool Lime Street was worked buy two of them in Northern Livery 142 036+ 142 049.

I think it will be a while yet before they are all out of service as recently i have noticed that each time a 150 or 156 comes into Lime Street they almost always have to recive attention from a fitter.

Where as the 142's dont seem to have any trouble as ive only noted one faliure in a long while.

While they look nice repainting 25 year old trains hardly benefits rail users.

They are only between 20 & 22 years old.

If 142s are generally in good working order then I must be very unlucky.

I've been affected by two cancellations due to a broken down 142 and on two ocassions a 142 has performed what seemed like an emergency stop in the middle of nowhere while a problem with the train has been administered to. And I don't know how many times a 142 I've been on has been delayed because of door's jamming (although the doors jamming has also occured on 156s) A lot of Northern's 142s also have some kind of interior problem from leaking to out of order toilets to broken seats as a result of age rather than vandalism.