Where would you like to see the Class 68 and Mk5 coaches in service next? Leave a reply! 😁

That these trains will be abandoned after only 4 years of use because the government doesn't want to fund maintenance is the most British Government thing I've ever heard. Such a shame.

The negligence of infrastructure in northern cities, especially compared to London, is absolutely criminal.

A loco-hauled train that would be worth doing is the TfW Premier service all the way from Cardiff to Holyhead. I know it's expensive but going first class with the full dining car service is quite an experience.

It’s a real shame when a train can look and feel so nice but with uncomfy seats. Personally I’ve travelled on these trains and I find the seats fine for journeys of up to 1 1/2 hours but no more

Some other interesting things to point out on the journey - the line passes the old railway station for Castle Howard (a private railway station which skirts the bottom of the estate, I believe - now a private residence, but the station signage is still there), which comes just after passing the ruins of Kirkham Abbey. Also, just behind the signal box at Scarborough is a bricked-up archway, which is the branching off point for the Victorian-era Scarborough-Whitby branch line. The terrain proved to be too much for Victorian engineering however and it suffered constant problems from slippy track, expensive tunnelling and steep gradients. It was never a success for various reasons and it was closed in the Beeching cuts. It's now a bridleway called The Cinder Track.

As a former railway employee of 44 years service on the S&T dept of British Rail/Network Rail, painting the front of a train in black and blue is one of the most backward steps in safety I have seen...especially in this current health and safety era!

The editing on this video must have talen ages - the quality is fantastic, really comprehensive! Really enjoyed this one mate! 😁

Great video. Your style has certainly improved in the last 2-3 years and you've grown the channel really well (even if I don't watch every video). I can confirm first class is brilliant, even if there is no catering, which let's it down. A fun coincidence that we uploaded a video on the same class of train and route 2 days apart 😅

Meanwhile, here in Spain casually doing 140km/h in a 48 year old train (Renfe class 470). We are having a serious train shortage problem here and there are also serious overcrowding problems, but hopefully with the arrival of new EMU sets in (please) about 2 years, these problems will be reduced.🙃 Cheers from Valencia! PD: If you want to experience a rather painful trip (depending on the train you get) I suggest the Xàtiva - Alcoi route. It has a very enjoyable scenario however and finally it will be refurbished next year.

The more fundamental problem with the British railways is that it's just too damn expensive! £6 is a great price for that journey, but £22 is silly. For comparison, my car would cost about £7 in fuel to do that distance, so as someone who's too old to get a railcard the train is already quite uncompetitive before we delve into things like seat comfort. If you're taking a family along, you'd have to *really* like trains to choose that over the car. A lot of the country's traffic congestion could be solved if train tickets were reasonably priced.

7:15 The nova trains where retired becuase of the difference in train between the 68/MK5a's and the rest of the EMU/DMU's not becuase they found the cracks. Those where repaired

Unfortunately i in common with others from the Scarborough area have been stuck with the atrocious service offered by TPE. These problems go back to May 2018. The timetable changes introduced at that time contained obvious errors like east and west bound services meeting at the single Malton platform with in 3 minutes of one another. The result was massive delays and cancellations with 3 hour gaps in service at times. TPE also had 3 different types of trains on the north route, and this proved difficult in terms of training. Post covid things continued as before with up to half the services cancelled some days, and huge gaps in the service at the outer ends of the routes. The planned timetable for December is certainly sparse but if its reliable then that will at least allow people to plan journeys. Local people have been saying for years that we need relibility over frequency. The mk5s are a good example of poor thinking by TPE in not foreseeing the problems posed by using 3 different types of train on their north route. TPE have also introduced multiple crew changes on their routes with crews shuttling back and forth during their shift, rather than allowing and training the crew of say Liverpool Newcastle services to work the full length. If a crew member is unavaible at short notice this then impacts multiple services, rather than just taking one service out it affects every service that crew was due to work. There have also been noise issues with the class 68 locos. In short a total mismanaged shambles. Scarborough residents have been suffering these problems for 5 nearly years when TPE were stripped of their franchise. As a unit the Mk5s gave a welcome increase in capacity and comfort, but operationally have proved to be a problem. I for one have reached the point with TPE where the fact that something turns up is more important that the type of unit. To put this in perspective i use TPE maybe 1 per week or so for business trips to the Manchester area, and have been for 15+ years.

Great video. I did the reverse trip to yours a couple of months ago in First Class. Like you say, they are great trains and replacing them with 185's is a backward move. One of the issues, and a regular cause of complaint, has been the noise of 68's from those living near to the Scarborough depot. Not sure what the future holds for the carriages, but the loco's are likely to be taken on by DRS (they already have a few ex TP surplus when the Nova 3 operation ceased on the South Transpennine route earlier this year). Chiltern trains also use 68's but with Mk.3's. The Nova 3 operation is due to end when the new timetable takes effect in just under two weeks. Will be sorry to see them go as they look great both externally and internally. There's a bizarre logic that seems to exist in UK railways, that to improve reliability means running fewer and shorter capacity trains. Makes no sense at all. At least we both had the opportunity to travel in a Nova 3 whilst we could.

Your Trip reports are great. The only advice which I can give is to use more authentic sound from your journeys and lower the music. For example - Train, Nature, Urban noises, announcements. Those sounds give better experience for audience.

This is Great Britain's railway system. What the hell had people been expecting?? I always thought Bransons 'Voyagers' were the pits but I reckon we ain't seen nuffink yet. At least those motorised goods vans with summat to park our backsides on gave us a ride to remember, especially whilst banging round Grimsby's Fish Dock curves at take off velocity. Glorious fun and never forget, we are only passengers and it's the crews who I feel sorry for and nothing is likely to change any time soon!

You should review the carriages that didn't even make five minutes in service - the cancelled Nightstar carriages that would have run through the channel tunnel and ended up in Canada and operated by Via Rail who call them Renaissance cars. They're not even the same width as regular Canadian carriages because UK loading gauge is smaller!

Malton Station building may Grade 2 listed but that didn’t stop the overall NE designed overall roof being removed 15 or so years ago ( look at Beverley or Filey Station.) it did at one point have a 2nd Platform outside the overall roof.accessed I believe by a rolling gangway.

It seems that the DfT doesn't care about overcrowding. Especially where wheelchair access is concerned

I’ve read the Class 68s have had complaints about noise when they are stabled at Scarborough. The comment about they being a great train apart from the seats, I once went to a technical lecture by a chap who designed seats for BR. He said the main passenger interface between people and trains were their bums. He went onto say they did sit tests in new seat designs to see if they were comfy.

Love your reports and your humor. Skimmed through the top comments to see if someone mentioned the quick "or more..." that appeared at the bottom of the screen at around 1:16 🤭 but didn't find any...

The 185s are most likely to be semi permanently coupled to each other, with the exception of the extra 1 that will probably run really short routes after the withdrawal of the Nova 3 sets.

Wouldn’t it be great if we could build our own trains again, considering this is the birthplace of the train.

I’ve never been to York before, I didn’t realise the station was so pretty!

"Cracks were discovered" - something that's also affected CAF's Urbos 3 trams on the West Midlands Metro (plus three other locations around the world), but they were repaired - I think the relevant authorities persuaded CAF to stump up the cost.

As a weekly traveller from Scarborough to York it is a great shame seeing these get rid off. Especially with no replacement, although testing of the Class 802 has happened twice this year for this route it still wont cover low capacity of the 185 knowing that 802s will rarely come here due to their already existing routes.

First I would like to say superalbs I absolutely love watching your videos of your train journeys a cross the world you do a absolutely fantastic job on them. Well to me it does not make much sense to withdraw the class 68s and mk 5A coaches and just go back to using the older rolling stock this means that TPE pretty much have gone back to square one I keep up to date with what's going with the uk railways via my train magazines I did read in one of them it might be a possibility the 68s and mk5a would be with Chiltern trains I think that's just a small possibility anyways keep up with the hard work that you put in to your great railway journeys 😎😎

The old carraige works is my workplace. Its still in use btw. Only does maintenence trains, ballast wagons, fabrications and all stuff for railhead treatment

The TPE livery on the Class 68's is lovely.

Was a shock to find out them nova 3 are coming to and end of an era after 4 years, Did like the look of them.

Nice! York station is great I went there on Saturday for a railtour

Hi Superalbs, I was wondering if you could do a review on a Class 755 one day (I recommend the Gainsborough Line, since the views off the bridge are nice, you pass through a Railway Museum, and Sudbury is a nice market town with quite a bit of history). The seats are comfy and ergonomic (for ‘new’ train seats), the ride quality is great, the train has some cool and important features, and I think it would make for a great video! 😊

Gutted to learn they are going to waste, I have used most Trans Pennine Trains on visits to and from Huddersfield to Leeds, York & Scarborough! The 3 car trains are nearly always overcrowded, this simply is a ridiculous situation that such new trains and carriages are being taken away when the lines are crying out for extra capacity! This Government is so stupid in its response, it has no plans, no understanding or care for the needs of Northern Commuters and lacks any vision to do what is needed to improve services!

They abandoned the NOVA 3 mainly because of noise and reliability, which the latter contributed to the poor performance of First-owned TPE. Class 185 is arguably even more comfortable than NOVA 1 and 2 for medium distance services, except the lack of them makes it impossible to couple up all services to provide enough capacity.

here in Belgium it would be unthinkable to get rid of brand new trains o_O

Amtrak’s passenger cars have lasted 50 years. These haven’t even lasted 5 years. And Amtrak probably gets less funding for maintenance than these British TOCs do. A locomotive hauled British passenger train is pretty unusual too. Usually they are multiple units.

They should not have gotten rid of British Rail. I got a 2 week 1st Class BritRail Pass in June 1990 & traveled about 5,000 km. I only had to pay 30 £/night on sleeper trains. I've been to all 3 Perths & Peterboroughs in the world. They are still running trains built in 1955 here in Canada on 'The Canadian" which I have taken 51x since 1964. Cheers from Vancouver.

Only an accountant could replace the Nova 3 with 185 units.

Great trip report

An amazing video I mainly focus on Adelaide’s trains since your So close to 100,000 subscribers I will subscribe

The plan is for the Mk5 and the Class 68 to support the Class 67's on the Chiltern route, but only after the Mk5 coaches get a full overhaul. There are plans for Class 811 diesel only "Supernova" units, but we'll be stuck with the venerable 185's for a good 5 years(!).

Nice video. It does seem a terrible waste to abandon these trains and surely they can be improved and provide much needed capacity.

I love it when they replace things with nothing; great video

I use this line fairly often over many years and was very disappointed when these trains were replaced with the smaller, older version. The seats were fairly hard but the journey is fairly short and it never bothered me. This is a classic example of levelling up - it always fails The North 😞

Would love to see Nova 3s on the GWR Portsmouth - Cardiff service which has been very much downgraded recently with grotty suburban Turbos currently trundling along the route

The reason behind this is that CAF, as a manufacturer, are hopeless at making trains. Where I'm from in Australia, Sydney purchased a bunch of Urbos 3 trams from them back in around 2013. Sometime around 2020, all had cracks found in their frames, and had to be temporarily withdrawn for a few years while being worked on. They were replaced by Alstom Citadis trams (at least someone can do it properly). Only just returned to service slowly in the past year or so. The problem is, no one learn over here and 3 more batches of trams have been ordered for various networks in New South Wales from the same builder, and Canberra has also made the same mistake. On top of that the NSW government has some long distance DMUs on order to replace the HST-like XPT passenger train sets built in 1981 by Comeng and Xplorer sets built by ABB from 1993, which seems pretty stupid. I also know that in the UK the class 334 EMUs were withdrawn due to cracks after less than 20 years service as well. Lesson? Don't buy from CAF.

Just 91.9K subscribers? Well underrated channel.

Went from Leicester to Scarborough for business. The York to Scarborough train was by far my favourite.

Them class 68s are also ridiculously loud, they can be easily heard from over a mile away even just at idle. I live in Scarborough and many many residents have complained.

I don't understand how carriages have regressed so much since the Mark 3

I used to enjoy traditional deeply upholstered seats in both open but also corridor and even enclosed compartments, no wifi of course and often very little light or heating, especially when that later was supposed to be steam generated, stll, fares were cheap and you could travel on Christmas Day! I have found modern seats not only uncomfortable themselves, but on such as Networkers impossibly optimistic, a 4Sub might have been comfortable with six abreast but five and a gangway with today's more ubiquitously dimensionally challenged would have tested Brunel..

Ive been to the museum loads of times it's amazing

Guess I won't be complaining about DB anymore after seeing this video. Trains being abandoned after just 4 years is not even awful, it's atrocious.

CAF are unfortunately known for cracked bogies and bad build quality. The Norwegian Flytoget airport express trains from CAF are now 5 years delayed. I'm guessing the British government knows not to throw good money after bad trying to fix something that would be crazy expensive and just call it sunk cost and scrap the entire fleet.

The most comfortable train I ever rode (was in 2009) was an old 70's slam door carriage with sagging seats that had to be used as a replacement service: it was supper quiet, the seats were still comfortable and spacious, and the train actually arrived early at its destination as it wasn't limited in its speed... Can we just have those back, please?

Tragically, in the Netherlands, with the Sprinter New Generation (SNG/Civity) EMUs, some of them also already got hairline cracks despite entering service in 2018. You have already guessed it: these were built by CAF as well. Fail after fail after fail, unfortunately.

You should really visit finland and try one of the double decker sleeper trains.

There's a fleet of 175s in storage that would make good substitutes for the Nova 3s, I'd have thought.

When was in York back in 2020 then travelled from York to Scarborough for the day. Found it comfortable to sit in for the journey in the Mk5. Then again I don’t find the 80x IET on GW bad either. Yes have to sit up straight so no slouching like in the good old days of Mk1, Mk2 and Mk3 which travelled in a lot when younger so isn’t that never travelled in them.

When you name one of the new Traction units "Destroyer", one can only read between the lines.

I can more or less confirm these are going over to Chiltern Railways to replace the mk3s theh currently use on mainline services! I am very close to a few senior Chiltern employees and this is what they have said!

These waggons look like the old ÖBB wendewagen what are still in service with a ER20 loco on local lines Would be cool if you could do a video about them Also good video (sorry for bad english)

Bring back mk1 and mk2 coaches. Comfortable with plenty of space and lasted for years. Sneeze at some of these modern concrete seated coaches and they fall apart.

Living where I do I find it really hard to actually gauge pricing for other country's rail tickets. In Victoria, Australia, it's $10 for a daily ticket for the entire state.

CAF trains having issues, something even an Aussie like me can relate to with the recent issues with Sydney Light Rail L1 and the issues with the still undelivered new regional fleet

I'm old enough to remember the old pre-war corridor coaches with their four abreast bench seats facing each other in each compartment. You became acquainted with your fellow traveller as you bounced along on trampoline style spring and horsehair upholstery that smelled of dust and tobacco smoke. I travel on TPE trains here from Newcastle, not the Nova 3 at illustrated, but the seating is similar. Maybe my ageing gluteus maximima and bony structure accentuate the discomfort, or maybe the train manufacturers are told to cut expense to the max, but I find most modern train seats to be disgusting. However, those First Class ones in your video look good. The Nova 3 sets are doomed because of the badly thought out aesthetics and cut-price engineering at bogie/chassis level. The push-pull locos are a disaster in looks, performance, and noise. If you have the time visit my latest take on the looming railway crisis at: https: // kzfaq.info/get/bejne/Y593bMKYp8ucp5s.html

i believe your american counterpart is also doing a feature on this topic, he teased some video the other week. (Trains are Awesome). As someone who lives on this route nothing suprises me, except perhaps good management and everything running on time lol

It's a shocking waste just to get rid of them. It can only mean less capacity on other services 😡

Where will they go next?

Two class 68 are going to be redesigned and re-engineered before going out for testing (so we could see them and others around again). This is to see if they can overcome all the failers and issues that are baked into the original design. Both will have totally new engines installed, this hopefully will overcome the main problem of the 68 using way too much fuel and then affect the emissions systems and then the software that runs the locomotive. For some reason, only one of them will have a much bigger fuel tank fitted replacing the current too small one. Currently, class 68 has to be filled up twice as often as other trains and this is causing issues.

There are talks on moving them to Chiltern Railways to replace the MK'3s and Clubmans on the Birmingham service, allowing the Clubmans to replace the Turbos.

5:18 on the nova 1, the seats are very comfortable despite the little padding. Or maybe it just felt good on my knackered back 😂

Boa tarde boa viagem ai lindo trem gostei

CAF have a terrible reputation for Welding. The Midland Metro trams , have had to be sent to Wolverton and had new sides in them . I should imagine that's what would have to be done to those coaches too. They have a world wide problem with the Urbo trams , which all have weld problems. The west midlands have spent 690 million on new CAF trains, they have weld problems too, along with poor suspension, braking, and trip Axle counters on a daily basis.

Thank you for sharing the video. We can not have it all! To have more seating capacity, not all can have a great outside view! Further more nowadays with smartphones and laptops, who cares about enjoying pleasant lineside views?

Beautiful train cool video

Its not entirely fair to say LNER is in the same boat as transpenine and describe it as a failing service taken over by the government. The line itself was poorly managed by previous operators however LNER itself has always been a government run OLR service and does a very good job.

Send the sets down here, to the South Western mainline to Salisbury and Exeter replacing aging class 159s. Convert them to electro-diesel units with third rail pick ups for the electrified lines switching to diesel on the un-electrified lines west of Basingstoke.

The transpennine nova 3 is my all time favourite train. I can’t believe they’re cutting it

Will be travelling by tras pennine today, hoping for the best as itll probably be the only time I use them due to northern doing almost all locations I wanna go to

Airline style seating belongs in aircraft where there is proper space for luggage. It messes up the entire seating layout and also means that the seats must be heavier as they need to have hefty frames.

I worked at the loco at derby apprentice welder, and they parked up the pandemonium just the same so as Italy got the idea

We used to travel in the 185's around the Cumbrian line before its operation went from TPE to Northern. I liked them and was sorry to see them go. The 195's are Okay, but not quite as roomy.

Interior-wise best first class I've been on.

I have to say they look great, that livery is brilliant.

Air vents on the side of train is interesting and useful

They are being replaced by class 802s, they have been testing them along the route recently

You should ride the Pacific surf liner from LA Union Station to Santa Barbara round-trip

I went on this train from Scarborough to york and after that a long class 47 came in on platform five a

So strange situation, nice scenery though back in 2020🙂🙂🙂🙂

I was once booked on one of these mark 5 sets from Manchester Piccadilly to Scarborough (or possibly Seamer, I was connecting with a Northern train towards Hull and cannot remember whether I planned to change at Seamer or carry on to Scarborough). However I missed the connection in Manchester (due to a late-running TfW service) and instead took a class 185 to York and then a later mark 5 working from York to Seamer. I'm glad I did miss the connection - over 2 hours (probably around 2hr 30min) on those awful standard class seats (used across the Nova 1, Nova 2, Nova 3, Azuma (LNER) and IET (GWR) fleets) would have been torture. They are fine for a short journey (and indeed are a massive upgrade compared to the utterly dire 'ironing board' seats on Northern's class 195s, refurbished ScotRail class 156s and Thameslink's class 700s) but I have a policy now of avoiding spending more than 90 minutes on a train fitted with them (for class 150s (better seats but zero legroom) my limit is 1hr and the same applies to the dreaded 'ironing boards'). The Government needs to hurry up and get Great British Railways up and running and have them implement the pledge to replace these awful seats with something much softer (although since COVID I've not seen any decent seat on a UK train).

Says much about the shambles of a railway system in the UK!

Voyager family units once withdrawn from Avanti and East Midlands, will be T.O.C. fleet trouble savers. Among candidates are Grand Central, Scotrail and Trans Pennine Express for instance.

I love class 68s!!!!!! I’m so sad they’re going so soon!!

Word is that they are being transferred to Cross Country to work the Stanstead Airport to Birmingham New Street route.

My Line! I think the wifi service was bad because on the map you'll see that the line weaves along the banks of the Derwent before Malton (a choice to avoid tunnelling the Howardian Hills) well away from roads and offering some great scenery - but no connectivity at all. Malton did actually have two platforms years ago - but it needed a retractable bridge to be operated to get to Platform 2, which was an island, so you could also get stranded there. Malton station is also on the left bank of the Derwent, so should really be called "Norton" And, for what it is worth, I danced a merry dance of glee the day that TPE lost their franchise. This branch is treated completely shoddily by TPE as it is the poor cousin of the electrified lines the other side of York.

The idea we can’t maintain these things is more like the bus graveyard in Sierra Leone than I want to think about.

People can hate all they like on the old Pacers, but at least they fitted the platform height. We had just got step-free stations due to line and station upgrades. New trains a few months later and step-free went out the window. The stations with their brand-new lifts are again off-limits.

Unpopular opinion: I think ditching the Nova 3 is the right move. This train's reliability issues were one of the main reasons why TPE found itself with such a negative reputation. In addition to complicating the driver training situation TPE are facing even further.

The motive power units have serious reliability issues and have contributed significantly to TP's punctuality problems. Then there's the noise, fuel consumption and many other faults. They're not being "withdrawn" so much as taken out of service for rectification. The sets will reappear in a year or two although the power units may not because the faults may be inherent. Meanwhile, TP does need some actually reliable stock. This is another example of when things are built down to a price not up to a standard.