Saying goodbye to our Class 153s

Wednesday, 2 December 2020
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West Midlands Railway finally bid farewell to the old London Midland Class 153 trains.

The Class 153s have served the railway for more than 30 years, exceeding 25 million miles over the entire fleet; that’s equivalent to 104 trips to the moon! But now it’s time to bid adieu as we make way for bigger and better things… like shiny brand-new trains!

London Midland Class 153 going into retirement

Built-in 1988, the Class 153s originally started as a two-car Class 155, but in the early 1990s, British Rail split them into separate units, creating the Class 153s.

For 10 years they graced the railway with rail operating company, London Midland, carrying passengers between Leamington Spa to Nuneaton and Bedford to Bletchley before our Class 172s took up those routes.

Since then, we have adopted the Class 153s for our own services, and in more times, they have been coupled up to our Class 170s to help create more capacity for services along our Birmingham to Hereford line; whilst we wait for our new Class 196 trains to arrive.

Joseph Simpson, West Midlands Railway’s Class 170 and 153 Fleet Engineer commented, ‘It is with great sadness that we say goodbye to our Class 153s as they head into long-term storage until they are needed again. I would like to say thank you to all the train crew and technical teams who have looked after these units for the past thirty years’.

Despite 2020 being a tough year for us all, we now look on to new horizons as we will be welcoming our brand-new Class 196 fleet next year.

Meet our Class 196 trains