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This is not so happy news for the Happy Trains I hope they won’t be sad.
This week has come with some sad news, ScotRail have announced the withdrawal of Class 365 from its fleet, now more Class 385s are in service.
ScotRail introduced the fleet of 10 Class 365 ‘happy trains’ last summer as a stopgap whilst preparing for the introduction of the brand new Class 385s. Well that was Scotrail’s worlds, however we all know it was down to problems with the fishbowl curved windows that have now been replaced with flat windows amongst other problems.
The Class 365s that are now 23 years old are dubbed as ‘happy trains’ due to their yellow front, windscreen and curved grinning air intake grill that resembling a smiley face.
The Class 365s did a great job provided over 17,000 extra seats per day on the Glasgow Queen Street to Edinburgh via Falkirk High route, as well as additional services on the recently electrified Stirling, Dunblane, and Alloa lines.
The new Class 385s along the Central Belt will deliver faster journeys on more reliable and modern trains.
The Class 365s were introduced as a temporary measure whilst various problems on the new Class 385s were ironed out. One of the faults was the Driver’s windscreen being smaller and of a tighter curvature. This resulting in reports of Drivers being able to see ‘two or three signals’ where only one existed. Other faults included software issues, as well as a critical fault which resulted in the brakes being isolated.
The first of the Class 365s have now been withdrawn, with the remainder to be phased out over the coming week. So if you want to see that happy smiling face of the Happy Train you better be quick.
Great Northern are also withdrawing their fleet of happy trains from service.
So this might be the last chance to see the beautiful smiling Happy Trains, so if you have been fortunate enough to have travelled on them and have some fond memories please leave your experiences in the comments below.
Mine was the time I got on one by accident at Glasgow Queen Street and had the whole happy train to myself from Glasgow to Edinburgh if you would like to see that video I will leave a link after this video and in the description below.
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