| Re: The Adelante fleet - what if they had remained in the South West? Posted by Richard Fairhurst at 13:59, 14th August 2026 |     |
Given the Adelantes' propensity to self-combust, I suspect in this weather, the answer to "where would we/they be today" is "firmly locked inside the depot"...
But despite their well publicised troubles, Old Oak Common did a remarkable job of getting them to behave. I wonder whether the introduction of the 175s might have been a bit smoother if a team of engineers with experience on their sister units was still on hand.
| The Adelante fleet - what if they had remained in the South West? Posted by grahame at 09:40, 14th August 2026 | |
"On this day" brings up Adelante (class 180) testing at Hull on 14th August 2009 - one of many pictures at http://www.traintesting.com/Class_180.htm
The Adelante fleet of 14 x 5 car trains was new to Great Western (the old, smaller franchise) around 25 years ago - the turn of the century, at it intesting (and hypotherical) to ask where we would be today if those trains had remained as paet of the franchise / management contract to this day.
