Farewell to Pacers, the rickety old bus-trains of the north | Sean Morley [The Guardian]
Date: 17/12/2019
They were held together by string and a prayer but scrapping them won^t change the regional inequality they represent. Trains in the north of England have two settings: being packed tight enough to inhale a stranger^s wet coat or feeling like you^re in a secondary school prefab classroom disintegrating as it re-enters the Earth^s atmosphere. Sometimes it^s both at once. Any train ride taken in the north can compete with the worst public transport experience you^ve had anywhere else in the UK, and there are none more competitive than Pacer trains. Introduced during the 1980s, Pacers were intended as a temporary solution to a rolling stock shortage. They were based on the bodies of old British Leyland buses, given a maximum lifespan of 20 years and left to linger for an average of 30. Forty years later, many are still with us.
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They were held together by string and a prayer “ but scrapping them wont change the regional inequality they represent, says comedian Sean Morley
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