Saturday 28th July was the last day for SWT to run a class 170 unit in passenger service, working 1L66 1845 Salisbury to London Waterloo & 1L69 2120 London Waterloo to Yeovil Jn (as far as Salisbury)
Great video! I remember these so well going past my house when I was a young boy, I used to love seeing them! Can't believe its exactly a decade they've been gone for!
After filming it at Clapham Junction I jumped on a train to Waterloo, the service with the 170/159 on is allowed extra time between Clapham Junction & Waterloo to wait for it booked platform, which gave me the chance to over take it, and that included my train stopping at Vauxhall too.
Wow now I've realised how long these trains have been with SWT then to TPE and now with Chiltern Railways converted to Class 168/3s they've been through a lot and never really knew the South Western Mainline had 170s I was 2 back then
The class 159's now Replace's the Clas 170 working between Yoevil Junction and London Waterloo. Some 159's has been sent to scotland because they like them and they sent all the class 170's to scotland so the video is really rare! Thank you!. Daniel
I think it was because some 158 became available and as they have a corridor connection on the front, would work better than the non-corridor 170's, when running in multiple.
@Clacatoo they were not as modular though, so if you had 3 units coupled up, you needed 3 guards for the service, put 3 159s or 158s together and one guard can serve the entire train
No 159's have been sent to Scotland there was 2 SWT 158 that went to Scotland on a tempory loan which 1 has now left Scotland, i think the 2 Ex SWT units are for use with Northern so will loose there SWT livery.
Nice vid mate, rode on 308 from salisbury to waterloo and video'd it leaving waterloo but lost them videos when my pc packed up. Another great train swt have gotten rid off.
After filming it at Clapham Junction I jumped on a train to Waterloo, the service with the 170/159 on is allowed extra time between Clapham Junction & Waterloo to wait for it booked platform, which gave me the chance to over take it, and that included my train stopping at Vauxhall too. then i caught the 170 unit back to Clapham Jn and filmed it departing there.
@Grahammd206 yeah just one unit went to Southern, it was built for Southern at 1st but then went to SWT before going back, as it was built for southern in the 1st place it had the Southern green seats inside it, even when running on SWT services, also the 1st class was only at one end.
I read somewhere that the 170s are slower to accelerate to line speed than the 159s, despite being slightly more powerful. On the SR, the 170s' higher speed of 100mph holds no advantage over the 159s' 90mph as much of the Salisbury line is limited to 85/90mph with only the Basingstoke to Surbiton stretch suitable for 100mph (just under thirty miles). I was fond of the 170s and enjoyed their MTU drone but no comparison to a thundering class 50...!
I knew in advance that I could overtake it, just didn't know what platform it was going to come in on at Waterloo, so there was a bit of a run, but not as far as I would have liked to have gone up the platform.
I think it was because some 158 became available and as they have a corridor connection on the front, would work better than the non-corridor 170's, when running in multiple.
