Our friends in the West haven’t had their troubles to seek on the rails of late.

Against a backdrop of general discontentment with First Great Western – for a while, the worst performing train operator in the country – there have been protests and fare strikes galore. There’s even a blog dedicated to venting the woes of the weary FGW traveller, entitled “I Hate First Great Western”. First has been contrite, practically dishing out compensation with the seat reservations, and acknowledging its shortcomings with bold ‘must do better’ promises for the future.

That’s what makes one of their recent moves all the more astonishing. Here’s Westcountry TV with the story:

In essence, First Great Western has made a mess of its fleet planning. Like other UK operators, it leases its rolling stock from a third party who, presumably, allocates particular types of trains to whoever puts in the highest bid. And so it is that FGW and its passengers have lost a number of their smart Class 158s – “everybody’s favourite”, writes one contributor to this railway forum – and gained… erm, some of these:

Looks rather like a bus, doesn’t it?

For the uninitiated, these ‘newcomers’ are railbuses – ‘Pacers’ as they were known when they were new, 22-years ago – designed as a solution to 1980s suburban travel. Only ever intended for the short hop, they could afford to be as rough and ready as their road-going counterparts, the kind of thing you’d find on your local bus route. The ‘Pacer’, then, revived an old British railway fascination for putting what is essentially the body of a bus onto a lightweight railway chassis. In the case of the Leyland-built 'Pacer', it was effectively a Leyland National:

Along with their express equivalent, the ‘Sprinter’, they’ve given sterling service over the years, and I have to admit to being quite fond of them. I vividly remember, aged six, coming home from my local model shop with the new Hornby ‘Pacer’ tucked under my arm, pleased as punch that it fitted my collection of toy buses just as well as it did the trains. I also remember going up to Leeds to ride on some of the earliest ones, these days to be found enjoying a second ease of life in Iran.

That’s not to say I’d want to ride on them day in, day out; I don’t think anybody does. In a recent issue of RAIL magazine, a letter highlighted the state of the ‘Pacers’ working on Mersey rail, and spoke of water leaking into the saloon through light fittings. “Nobody deserves this”, said Mr Angry of Wirral.

The people of the West seem to agree; and I’m here to tell you, it’s not for the first time. The world - the passenger groups, the forums, even the Westcountry TV reporter with the jacket – seems to have missed a crucial point in the story of the ‘Pacer’ heading West. They’ve been there before!

22-years ago, thirteen brand new ‘Pacers’ (or ‘Skippers’, as these particular ones were designated, for obvious reasons) were allocated to the branch lines west of Exeter, supposedly to replace trains which had worked them for the last thirty years. Immediately, they were hated by crews and passengers alike; unlike their predecessors, they had no forward vision by which to enjoy the scenery of Devon and Cornwall, and because of their fixed frames, they screamed like fury on the tight bends of the Western Region. The 30-year old trains were duly reprised, and the ‘Skippers’ were sent away with their couplings between their bus-like legs.

Now, their cousins are back. To my knowledge, they’re not working the small branch lines for which they proved so unsuitable two decades ago; unbelievably, they’re actually working longer journeys. Exeter to Barnstaple – a line close to my heart – buys you a 90-minute ride on one of these things. On a recent visit to Torquay, a friend and I caught one on the Paignton line; I enjoyed the nostalgia value, but she was just about ready to be sick by Newton Abbot. Like most of the West, she doesn’t like travelling backwards.

It’s good to see, though, besides the army of people fighting for its demise, there are some who still enjoy the Pacer - enough, even, to sing about it…

(And when you’ve recovered, here’s “Take A Look At My Bus Doors”)…