Class 117 DMU's.

[1018509]

Does this belong in the heritage/preservation section - please let me know?

In the early 60's I was an avid train-spotter at Iver station.

During my time spent there I often noted a three carriage class 117 with either the trailer replaced with a similar carriage bearing eastern region numbers or indeed the eastern trailer may have been inserted into a three carriage unit to make a 4 carriage unit - the mists of time make me unclear on this. I know it was before the BR corporate blue came into being - DMU - green - in them days. The train was usually, I believe, on the slow Paddington/Slough diagram.

I can remember the carriage looked completely out of place because of its silver beading around the windows. - was it from a class 108?

Does any one know any more about this - why was it done etc?

Was I seeing just the one carriage or were there several?

 

[yorkie]

Does this belong in the heritage/preservation section - please let me know?

No, I'd say railway history and nostalgia is the best place. That said, if the conversation developed into one about preserved trains, and it fit better there, it could be moved later.

Sorry I can't answer your main question but I'm sure someone will be along shortly.

 

[fgwrich]

Although these pictures are a from a few years later, they should give you a good indication of the various mixed DMU formations that used to run up and down the Western Region, mostly emanating from Reading Depot which became even more varied and exotic in the Network SouthEast era.

http://www.hondawanderer.com/Class_101.htm

http://www.hondawanderer.com/Class_104.htm

http://www.hondawanderer.com/Class_108.htm

http://www.hondawanderer.com/Class_117.htm

From what you've said with it having silver window frame/beadings and an Eastern Region E I'd say it was rather likely to have been a former Eastern Region Class 101 TCL - made spare when the first class was declassified and the units downgraded to 2 cars.

Hope this helps, certainly from your description it sounds like a Metro Cammel vehicle.

Rich

 

[1018509]

Although these pictures are a from a few years later, they should give you a good indication of the various mixed DMU formations that used to run up and down the Western Region, mostly emanating from Reading Depot which became even more varied and exotic in the Network SouthEast era.

http://www.hondawanderer.com/Class_101.htm

http://www.hondawanderer.com/Class_104.htm

http://www.hondawanderer.com/Class_108.htm

http://www.hondawanderer.com/Class_117.htm

From what you've said with it having silver window frame/beadings and an Eastern Region E I'd say it was rather likely to have been a former Eastern Region Class 101 TCL - made spare when the first class was declassified and the units downgraded to 2 cars.

Hope this helps, certainly from your description it sounds like a Metro Cammel vehicle.

Rich

What a fantastic photo site

It answered my questions exactly. Apparently three more DMS's and DMBS's were built than TL so there was always a shortfall in making up units.

I hadn't thought about it but Wikpedia also provided the answer but I forgot to check.

 

[Taunton]

Apparently three more DMS's and DMBS's were built than TL so there was always a shortfall in making up units.

Several batches of WR 3-car dmus had more power cars than trailers, they were used to form power twin sets which were used on lightly loaded routes. Taunton to Barnstaple, for example, was fully dieselised in 1964 with such sets, they were the only dmu formations, from several of the manufacturers, that I saw on the route.

Regarding the Pressed Steel Class 117 units in the London area, if I recall correctly the shortfall of three trailers was made up long-term by three of the trailers from the 15-strong Birmingham RCW suburban sets which numerically preceded them and looked pretty much the same, to the "Derby suburban" design. The Birmingham units were originally allocated to Plymouth and the West Country, including the Taunton-Barnstaple line mentioned above, where 2-car sets were often more than sufficient.

An unusual variation in the early (green livery) days was that a couple of the Gloucester cross-country sets had an old GWR Hawksworth-design coach inserted in the formation, to bring them up to 4-car sets. It was fully painted in lined green livery to match, but the quite different roofline identified it.

The most strange combinations were on the former Southern lines west of Salisbury, all the way to Padstow, in the mid-late 1960s. The WR dieselised these soon after takeover with spare dmus, a number of them suburban sets from South Wales. There were considerable complaints about these non-lavatory units being used on long runs, and after some political pressure from local MPs the WR one weekend reformed many units, exchanging the centre lavatory trailer from the Swindon and Gloucester Cross-Country sets (they also had a lavatory in one of the power cars) with the centre car of the suburban units, so every set had one lavatory. The results looked faintly ridiculous, as not only were there now mixed green/blue sets, but as the suburban sets were non-corridor all the corridor connections were now useless, so if you felt you might need that 'facility' you had to pick the right car of three in advance. The whole thing had an air of having been done out of spite after a missive handed down from 222 Marylebone Road. The WR had always been more precise in maintaining their sets in original formation than other regions, especially keeping the right power cars together, many seemed to stick together for 20 years or more.

The most bizarre Pressed Steel class 117 working I saw was when musician Jean Michel Jarre did a large concert in 1988 in London's Royal Docks, and as it was long before the DLR went down there 6-car dmu specials were run down the old North Woolwich line from Stratford to Custom House using units borrowed from Paddington. If I hadn't seen the class 117 (by then in Network South East livery) in Custom House station myself I would never have believed it.

 

[Grumpy]

Does this belong in the heritage/preservation section - please let me know?

In the early 60's I was an avid train-spotter at Iver station.

During my time spent there I often noted a three carriage class 117 with either the trailer replaced with a similar carriage bearing eastern region numbers or indeed the eastern trailer may have been inserted into a three carriage unit to make a 4 carriage unit - the mists of time make me unclear on this. I know it was before the BR corporate blue came into being - DMU - green - in them days. The train was usually, I believe, on the slow Paddington/Slough diagram.

I can remember the carriage looked completely out of place because of its silver beading around the windows. - was it from a class 108?

Does any one know any more about this - why was it done etc?

Was I seeing just the one carriage or were there several?

A couple of Reading based 3 car suburban sets had Metro Cammell trailers added, to make 4 car sets. These were certainly in use in the early 1970's.

 

[theblackwatch]

Three Class 101 trailers (59528/34/38) were transferred from Neville Hill to Reading in 1967. I haven't managed to find any details of specific formations these three were put in, but it is almost certain that these are the vehicles you remember.

 

[Taunton]

Three Class 101 trailers (59528/34/38) were transferred from Neville Hill to Reading in 1967. I haven't managed to find any details of specific formations these three were put in, but it is almost certain that these are the vehicles you remember.

I have since discovered that these three Metro-Cammell cars were officially replacements for the three former GWR Hawksworth-design carriages which had been adapted as dmu trailers in 1959 as described above, and were withdrawn in 1967. They were allocated to Reading and built up three-car units to four cars, and in theory were inserted in the Gloucester RCW Cross-Country units and used on Oxford-Paddington semi-fast services. They must have been the first (and for a long time only) Met Cam cars on the Western Region.