A grey cold and wet Saturday afternoon at Nottingham station finds East Midlands Railways 180109 standing in the relatively new and rather bleak platform 7 working 1B61, 14:50 Nottingham – St Pancras, 15th January 2022.
Unit History
180109 is one of fourteen units built by Alstom between 2000 and 2001 at Washwood Heath, Birmingham for express duties on the Great Western Main Line. They are part of the Alstom Coradia 1000 family of multiple units (along with the class 175) and are capable of 125mph. However their introduction was plagued by a number of reliability issues and First Great Western have gradually downgraded their use as they acquired additional HST sets until it finally disposed of the class during 2008/09 with the last class 180 in service with First Great Western stored on 27 March 2009. Following their discarding by First Great Western, 180110 was one of four Class 180 units leased by First Hull Trains for Hull – Kings Cross duties and remained on these until displaced by Class 802 IEP units in early 2020. Following a period of crew training and a re-livery into East Midlands Railways colours it commenced Midland Main Line duties at the start of the new timetable on the 14th December 2020.
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