hexagon789
Veteran Member
There's a good picture on Flickr of a 3-car unit formed of three different classes in three different liveries! (Rail Blue, Blue/Grey and SPT)
-
Our booking engine at tickets.railforums.co.uk (powered by TrainSplit) helps support the running of the forum with every ticket purchase! Find out more and ask any questions/give us feedback in this thread!
1st Gen DMU's, brake vans in multi formations.
- Thread starter delt1c
- Start date
- Status
Sponsor Post - registered members do not see these adverts; click here to register, or click here to log in
R
RailUK Forums
theblackwatch
Established Member
- Joined
- 15 Feb 2006
- Messages
- 10,713
That's right, and lots of units moved away from areas where they had operated for many years, and split from their usual formations. For example, Class 108s 53637/638, which had been part of 4-car (later reduced to 3-car) sets in Yorkshire/North East for all their lives found themselves split and sent to the West Country and paired up with 101 vehicles in 2-car sets. Calder Valley (Class 110) centre cars moved to Scotland, Class 119s ended up at Heaton, etc. It's probably that period which fired my interest in such units which has continued to this day.
The scenes in the 1980s "To the Manor Born" TV series at the station were filmed at Maiden Newton, on the Westbury to Weymouth line. Unless it had a very train-buff director, it will have been the WR who decided which dmu to send out for the filming, and they chose one of the first Met-Cam units (Class 101 for those of a more recent origin!) transferred there from the North-East. It even doesn't have any destination blind fitted yet.
hexagon789
Veteran Member
Quite a few 120s seem to run with 101 centre cars in the mid/late-1980s on ScR, there was also one with an all Blue 104 trailer but I've never found a photo.
The Swindon 120s (and the Gloucester RCW 119s built to the same diagrams) were notably inefficient in their interior layout. The motor composite had an oversize first class saloon with 6 rows of seats, a tiny 2-bay standard class saloon-ette, and an oversize luggage compartment, while in the trailer a buffet took the space of two bays. Given they were used on services with little or no actual revenue first class demand, few parcels or luggage etc, and the buffet in my experience was never, ever staffed since the day they were built. That the motor composite at one end seated just 16 standard passengers and the motor second at the other seated 68 shows the disparity. When used as a 2-car power twin without the trailer, as on Taunton to Barnstaple, it gave less standard class seats than one car of a WR suburban unit.
Putting a Met-Cam 101 trailer in the set gave some more seats. Were the Scottish cars declassified by the 1980s?
edwin_m
Veteran Member
They were by 1978.
hexagon789
Veteran Member
And augmentation with Cravens 105s occurred even on the Inverness-Aberdeen which runs through some sparse country though there are a few sizeable places en route but if 120 capacity was insufficient on that lone I can well imagine the issues on the busier WR routes.
Late-1970s, some point between the 1976-77 and 1980 timetables.
Probably 1977 then; 1976-77 has first class on some DMU routes such as Glasgow-Ayrshire but 1980-81 has all DMU services as Second Only.
Sprinter107
Member
- Joined
- 26 Mar 2019
- Messages
- 935
Werent Met Camm centre cars used in place of some of the original cars due to asbestos ? For me there would be no competition, I would always sit in one of the 120 cars instead of the more austere 101 car.
delt1c
Established Member
- Joined
- 4 Apr 2008
- Messages
- 2,125
And what about the DMBF cars allocated to Inverness for the Aberdeen service. The standard class are in of 3 (I think) DMBC waws converted to additional guard space for the fish then carried.
davetheguard
Established Member
- Joined
- 10 Apr 2013
- Messages
- 1,811
I can assure you that it wasn't oversized when the 119s were used on the Reading to Gatwick Airport route. Even after the former buffet area had been removed and replaced with wooden shelving for luggage, the guard's van floor was often completely covered with cases; all kept secure within the lockable metal cage provided for when the Guard was elsewhere checking tickets.
MarlowDonkey
Member
- Joined
- 4 Apr 2013
- Messages
- 1,101
They were also used to strengthen doubled up 3 car formations to seven cars. The two morning through trains from Bourne End to Paddington were regulars for this. You never saw a four car formation, so presumably they either stayed as 7 car all day or dropped the trailer if they split.
WR London division did seem to make use of some (not all) of their allocated Pressed Steel 122 driving trailers on the branches, which don't seem to have significant gradients, but elsewhere the equivalent Gloucester RCW 121 driving trailers delivered with the other single cars just seemed unused - in fact, if you ever saw one in use, you are better than me.
Separately, while looking for an illustration of one just now, I cam across the first photo I have seen in 55 years of the oddball lashup the WR was forced to do in the 1960s on former its Southern WofE lines, as I described above, to put one vehicle in each train with toilets on the replacing dmus, by exchanging the centre cars of the 116 Suburban 508xx 3-car units with the centre of the 120 Cross-Country 515xx sets. Here it is https://rcts.zenfolio.com/diesel/br/dmu-1xx/122/ha0fc2cc3#ha0fc32b6 , not the main focus of the photo but the 3-car set on the right, on the main line at Axminster, at least all still in common green livery. That's a suburban power car at the far end, with the Cross-Country car in the middle, distinguishable here by the different window pattern.
Separately, while looking for an illustration of one just now, I cam across the first photo I have seen in 55 years of the oddball lashup the WR was forced to do in the 1960s on former its Southern WofE lines, as I described above, to put one vehicle in each train with toilets on the replacing dmus, by exchanging the centre cars of the 116 Suburban 508xx 3-car units with the centre of the 120 Cross-Country 515xx sets. Here it is https://rcts.zenfolio.com/diesel/br/dmu-1xx/122/ha0fc2cc3#ha0fc32b6 , not the main focus of the photo but the 3-car set on the right, on the main line at Axminster, at least all still in common green livery. That's a suburban power car at the far end, with the Cross-Country car in the middle, distinguishable here by the different window pattern.
Just browsing through Flickr and I found a photo of what appears to be a 100/105/101 combo on the ScR at Inverkeithing in the early 70s:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/86020500@N06/8636785333/
https://www.flickr.com/photos/86020500@N06/8636785333/
randyrippley
Established Member
- Joined
- 21 Feb 2016
- Messages
- 5,132
the next photo in that sequence looks to me like a mixed power triple
Sprinter107
Member
- Joined
- 26 Mar 2019
- Messages
- 935
Think the middle car is an unpowered driving trailer class 122 (formerly 150)the next photo in that sequence looks to me like a mixed power triple
hexagon789
Veteran Member
Nice combo, must try and find the triple triple combo one (3 classes in 3 liveries).
Western 52
Member
I found this shot I took of a 3-car DMU set with all 3 cars having a brakevan! This is Canton set C396 leaving Barry Island on 1st September 1990 forming the 1704 to Bargoed. The motor vehicles are class 116 MBS 51133 and 51136 and the trailer is class 108 TBS 59248. From memory, this set ran like this for a while, and I rode to work on it a few times. The guard had plenty of choice on this set! At this time, there were a number of mixed class sets in South Wales as the DMUs worked out their final days. This was the only set with 3 brake cars though.
That’s really good. I love the mismatch of the heights on the blue and grey between the two types.
The paint mismatch was the second thing I noticed, after both the West Midlands and the Welsh Dragon local service logos being applied on the same car.
Both the car types were designed at Derby, at effectively the same time, presumably in the same drawing office, and the paint difference just accentuates the windowline difference. One wonders why they did not use a common bottom windowline. Even the van windows are different sizes, which could readily be the same. This having happened, one then wonders why the blue/grey livery was not standardised for depth. The top of the grey is the same, the bottom on the suburban cars would need to be deepened, not much, for consistency, as the low density car livery has to be under the larger windows.
Both the car types were designed at Derby, at effectively the same time, presumably in the same drawing office, and the paint difference just accentuates the windowline difference. One wonders why they did not use a common bottom windowline. Even the van windows are different sizes, which could readily be the same. This having happened, one then wonders why the blue/grey livery was not standardised for depth. The top of the grey is the same, the bottom on the suburban cars would need to be deepened, not much, for consistency, as the low density car livery has to be under the larger windows.
theblackwatch
Established Member
- Joined
- 15 Feb 2006
- Messages
- 10,713
They did, certainly on the 101s, and I think other classes, at Doncaster! The grey was always deeper, so it was roughly the same level as other units such as 108s, on Doncaster repaints. It was higher on those dealt with at Swindon - not sure about other works. Swindon also had smaller BR arrows. It seems that perhaps each works had its own spec rather than there being a standard policy?
My comment was not so much about the painting as the design standard (although anything but standard it seems) of the windows and their various lower windowlines. Which must have led to much duplicate stocking cost of spares in the stores.
Separately, it's a good photograph for detail of past times, beyond the bizarre formation. The bracketed signals are typical Western Region from Reading signal works. The signalbox doesn't look very GWR though, with not a lot of windows around the end. The two power cars are from the separate batch of about a dozen built for and kept for many years in the Bristol area, which will surely have been old 1960s friends of mine on Taunton to Minehead (for some reason the Minehead line was always run with Bristol units, while Taunton to Barnstaple, departing from the next bay alongside, was always run with Laira units).
Separately, it's a good photograph for detail of past times, beyond the bizarre formation. The bracketed signals are typical Western Region from Reading signal works. The signalbox doesn't look very GWR though, with not a lot of windows around the end. The two power cars are from the separate batch of about a dozen built for and kept for many years in the Bristol area, which will surely have been old 1960s friends of mine on Taunton to Minehead (for some reason the Minehead line was always run with Bristol units, while Taunton to Barnstaple, departing from the next bay alongside, was always run with Laira units).
hexagon789
Veteran Member
A nice set and a great shot; the guard would go in the rear van depending on direction. That was usually the arrangement unless specified otherwise in the Sectional appendix.
I think the Cravens units were supposed to be the most similar to Mk1 coaches, windows in particular
Sprinter107
Member
- Joined
- 26 Mar 2019
- Messages
- 935
The suburban dmus always seemed to have a slightly more slab sided profile than a mark 1 coach I always thought.
hexagon789
Veteran Member
The Swindon designs had quite straight-sided profiles compared to the noticeable tumblehome curve on Mk1s
Merle Haggard
Established Member
That's a valid point - compartment stock was certainly used on the LM over comparatively long distances in steam days, although not always for the whole train.
However, the trusty Ian Allan ABCs did show them as, for example, '(3 Suburban)' in the class headings, so that's probably why it is used. What isn't clear is whether this was based on a B.R. document or Ian Allan's own idea.
Gloster
Established Member
Many, probably most, of the signal boxes of the South Wales lines were built by signalling contractors to their own designs or variations of them. After the grouping some were replaced or Great Westernised, but many remained little changed until closure. Unless I am mixing things up, the box visible is the former Barry Island West, which had previously been on the Cardiff Railway at Nantgarw and was only erected at Barry Island in 1929.
delt1c
Established Member
- Joined
- 4 Apr 2008
- Messages
- 2,125
Fantastic shot, saw 3 cars with 2 Brakes but never a 3 with Brakes, was this one of the gangwayed 116's?
edwin_m
Veteran Member
The MetCam 101s look to have a similar window depth to the so-called Mk1 Pullmans produced by the same company. I wonder if there were other similarities.
As I understand it ...
The WR used the Derby suburban design drawings quite extensively, except for their own Swindon-design class 120. It's a bit difficult keeping up with the TOPS class numbers, as they are in anything but construction order, but whatever. The 116 were the original Derby suburban cars for the WR, in fact just a variation on the first steel cars, the 50000 Class 114, same body construction and length but with suburban layout and doors etc. Derby ran two production lines side by side through the dmu build era, the short frame, alloy body, low density cars, and the long frame, steel body, high (normally) density ones. Both types had the same cab ends (fibreglass, I believe). Later the cab changed a bit with the repositioning of the destination, and the high level 4-character indicator.
When it came to dieselising the WR London services, Derby was fully occupied, so Swindon sent the Derby drawings to Pressed Steel in Glasgow for the 117s. Pressed Steel had not done dmus before, although they did quite a lot of Mk 1 hauled stock and vans, and so Swindon guided them. They had nicer interiors, including toilets in the trailers. Then again another 15 sets were needed at Plymouth, and the diagrams were sent again to Birmingham RCW, the 118s, the same ones presumably as they are notably difficult to tell apart, and quite different to anything else BRCW did.
The single cars (and their associated driving trailers) were the 122s by Gloucester RCW, these came first, done alongside the comparable Gloucester Cross-Country 119s (which themselves were built from the Swindon Cross-Country 120 drawings, with the Derby cab); Gloucester had been a longstanding Swindon subcontractor, and indeed had built the later GWR single railcars in 1940. However they were a suburban interior. Goodness knows why it was thought that a service that only ran to a single car needed maximum density seating. The 121s came later, from Pressed Steel, and again were just a permutation of previous drawings. It's a strange point that the only dmus on the WR, coming from multiple builders, which did not have the Derby front were the Class 120 units built by Swindon themselves. Nor would the WR have any truck with low density, lightweight cars.
- Status