page_title: Great Western Railway (train operating company)
section_title: Class 143 Pacer
hierarchical_section_title: Great Western Railway (train operating company) / Rolling stock / West of England services / Class 143 Pacer
caption_attribution_description: English: The railway line between Dawlish and Teignmouth is renowned for its sea views. 'Pacer; units 143621 and 143620 are working a Great Western Railway service from Exmouth to Paignton.
context_page_description: Great Western Railway is a British train operating company owned by FirstGroup that operates the Greater Western railway franchise. It manages 197 stations and its trains call at over 270. GWR operates long-distance inter-city services along the Great Western Main Line to and from the West of England and South Wales, inter-city services from London to the West Country via the Reading–Taunton line and the Night Riviera sleeper service between London and Penzance. It also provides commuter and outer-suburban services from its London terminus at Paddington to West London, the Thames Valley region including parts of Berkshire, parts of Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire; and regional services throughout the West of England and South Wales to the South coast of England. GWR will also be providing and maintaining the new fleet for Heathrow Express from May 2020.
  The company began operating in February 1996 as Great Western Trains, as part of the privatisation of British Rail. In December 1998 it became First Great Western after FirstGroup bought out its partners' shares in Great Western Holdings.
context_section_description: First Great Western inherited the small fleet of eight two-coach Class 143 Pacer railbuses from Wessex Trains following the franchise merger in April 2006. They are currently used on suburban services in and around Exeter. The Class 143 fleet was fully refurbished during 2008 and 2009, and painted in the same livery as the rest of the West of England fleet. Since they are unable to meet an accessibility requirement, they were due to be withdrawn at the end of 2019, but this was postponed due to a shortfall in replacement stock. Porterbrook, the owners of the stock, have proposed a refurbishment that would make the Class 143 fully accessible. The type is due to be replaced by Class 150 units, these becoming available because the Class 150s will be replaced by Class 158s cascaded from the Bristol area once the Class 165s and 166s are moved from the Thames Valley to the Bristol area when they are replaced by the Class 769 units.
  All the units are painted in the green GWR livery, 143617, 143618 and 143619 also have a partial interior refurbishment. The first unit repainted was 143603 in July 2017.
caption: 143621 and 143620 near Dawlish after repainting in 2017
exif: {"Image Make": "Canon", "Image Model": "Canon EOS 550D", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image DateTime": "2017:09:30 17:14:35", "Image Artist": "", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Co-sited", "Image Copyright": "", "Image ExifOffset": "2236", "Image XPAuthor": "[0, 0]", "Image Padding": "[]", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/500", "EXIF FNumber": "28/5", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Shutter Priority", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "800", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0221", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2017:09:30 17:14:35", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2017:09:30 17:14:35", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF ShutterSpeedValue": "9", "EXIF ApertureValue": "5", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire, compulsory flash mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "75", "EXIF SubSecTime": "25", "EXIF SubSecTimeOriginal": "25", "EXIF SubSecTimeDigitized": "25", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "3456", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "2304", "Interoperability InteroperabilityVersion": "[48, 49, 48, 48]", "EXIF InteroperabilityOffset": "12568", "EXIF FocalPlaneXResolution": "691200/181", "EXIF FocalPlaneYResolution": "460800/119", "EXIF FocalPlaneResolutionUnit": "2", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "EXIF Padding": "[]", "EXIF OffsetSchema": "4168"}