[hstudent]

While waiting for a train a couple of weeks ago a train arriving in the other direction (more than 20 minutes late) was a 150 in North Western livery, followed by a 156 in Arriva Trains Northern livery, then a 142 in Mersey Travel livery.

This was on the 9:30 from Northwich (Cheshire) to Blackpool, having gone from St-Annes-on-Sea (Lancashire) to Greenbank (Cheshire) in the other direction.

I only found out this morning why this combination of trains was used. Apparently the horn was out of order on the 156 and couldn't easily be fixed. The only spare unit available was a 142. Northern decided that it would take too long to detach the 156, and that replacing it with a 142 would likely lead to more overcrowding than usual. So they attached the 142 to the front. Apparently what they forgot is that 142s shouldn't be hauling two sprinter trains full of passengers and caused the service to run slower than normal.

Why is it that most TOCs can't have a few locomotive engines to use in this sort of situation. If they did it would probably reduce the number of cancellations due to faults with trains as well?