I spent six years driving the class 308 units on the Skipton/Bradford FS/Ilkley/Leeds 'triangles' services between 1995 and 2001, when they were replaced by the 333s. Despite their age - and the amount of time that they had spent quietly rusting in the salty sea air at Pig's Bay Sidings, Shoeburyness - they were generally fairly efficient and reliable although, not surprisingly, suffered from quite severe bodywork corrosion.....which made some of the cabs rather draughty in Winter. When the 21 units already mentioned were resurrected and moved up to West Yorkshire in 1994-95, the trailer composites were removed and the resulting three cars units had a significantly improved power/weight ratio. In this form, they were capable of considerably more than their nominal 75 mph maximum and I have to confess to reaching 84 with 308 163 - easily the best unit - one night on the late Ilkley-Skipton ECS working. When things did go wrong, they were usually minor faults which you could just about stagger home with. I only failed completely - requiring assistance - twice in six years, with the same power fault and subsequently discovered that it could be rectified (unofficially) by the driver opening the relay cupboard in the Motor Brake Second and striking the plastic cover of two of the overload relays with a carriage key! Unfortunately, in the late 1990s, a much more serious fault which had afflicted the units a few years earlier on the London, Tilbury & Southend line re-emerged in Yorkshire. One morning, shortly after 308 155 had arrived in platform 2 at Leeds, there was a loud explosion in the motor coach, which blew off one of the brake van doors and catapulted the guard's seat out onto the platform. Luckily the guard had just vacated the van and was shocked, but unhurt. About a week later, the same thing happened with 308 138 in the same platform, thankfully again with no injuries. Both units were taken out of service and sent to Neville Hill immediately after the incidents and several diagrams were replaced by diesel units for a few weeks while the rest of the fleet were checked and it transpired that the problem was caused by overheating of the cooling oil bath surrounding the right-angled joint in the 25 Kv power cable leading from the pantograph main circuit breaker to the transformer. Apparently the same thing happened with 308 162 inside the maintenance shed at Neville Hill - this time causing a fire which damaged the passenger accommodation - and that unit never ran again. The then franchise holder, Northern Spirit, had planned a final gala weekend before the units' second withdrawal - with six car units running special 'express' services circulating on all four routes, interspersed between the 333 service trains and stopping only at Guiseley, Shipley and Keighley and doing the rare electrified track on the Up line to the Limit of Shunt at Skipton North Junction. IIRC, it was planned to sell a £5 'all day' ticket with the proceeds going to a railway charity. Unfortunately, however, Northern Spirit were rapidly descending into a critical driver shortage, with many service train cancellations, so the management reluctantly called off the whole event at very short notice.