DMUs vice Loco Hauled

[Masbroughlad]

In BR days, did first generation DMUs ever find themselves standing in for long distance, intercity, loco-hauled trains?

Any examples?

Guess in most cases then there were enough spare locos and stock to replace them.....

 

[Mugby]

Not exactly standing in but I do know that on one occasion a DMU arrived in Derby on a NESW relief service. I think it was Leeds - Bristol and it was 2 x 2 cars and a 3 car tied together.

 

[route:oxford]

In BR days, did first generation DMUs ever find themselves standing in for long distance, intercity, loco-hauled trains?

Any examples?

Guess in most cases then there were enough spare locos and stock to replace them.....

It wasn't unusual for a first generation DMU to turn up on a Glasgow-Aberdeen service in the 70s & 80s.

 

[Whistler40145]

I only experienced them during Engineering blockades between Preston/Lancaster & Carlisle in 1980s, usually several DMUs were bolted together & ran Preston-Lancaster or Preston-Carnforth.

 

[Welshman]

Going back into the 1960s, I can just remember the occasional Cl.115 [delivered for the London Marylebone Outer Suburban Services], turning-up on Marylebone-Nottingham Victoria semi-fasts, in lieu of LHCS [then steam-hauled].

Then, towards the end of this service, one or two Nottinghams were rostered for the dmus on a regular basis.

 

[9K43]

Plese note this happened in 1981.so there may be some things I may hav forgotten

When first stated as a guard at Huddersfield, we had a 1300hrs DMU job to Leeds City via Mirfield, Thornhill, Dewsbury, Batley, Morley Low and Leeds.
The DMU was a 3 car and was driven by the Huddersfield ASLEF LDC man.
We set off as normal untill we drew into Morley Station and the units engine had stopped leaving the DMU marooned at Morley.
At this time there was a signal Box at Morley.
We arranged for the Newcastle to Liverpool class 46 to stop, and take me back through Morley Tunnel, so I could conduct this train onto the failed DMU in Morley Station.
I rode through the tunnel in the cab of the Liverpool train, and got out at the other end of the tunnel, where the Newcastle mans was waiting for me to arrive.
We went through Morley tunnel at a reduced speed onto the Morley platform where the the DMU was stuck.
As we came into Morley Station the DMU driver coupled up the DMU Newcastle tain, while I picked up the pretection on Dets. We then set off to Leeds being propelled with a Class 46 onto a cleared platform at Leeds City Station.
As soo as we stopped, the rescuing train stopped on the cleared line, till a350 came onto the failed failed DMU. The 350 then cleared the platform road and dragged the DMU upto Neville Hill Depot. When the line was clear, the Newcastle Express followed the Demic Unit, and went about its journey to Newcastle.
We then went into the mess room and had a brew and set off to Sheffield to pick up our diagram of the 1701hr.s Sheffield to Huddersfield Passenger

 

[Dave1954]

Going on holiday from B'ham new st to Weston SM one Saturday morning in 1973 , expecting a peak/brush and a ruddy DMU 101 turns up

 

[fowler9]

Not quite the same but I was pretty disgusted on a bank holiday Monday in August in the late 90's when a cross country service heading to Liverpool turned up at Reading as the Reading Festival let out and it was a 2 car 158. Not sure where it had come from but it was full to standing before it arrived. Not sure which genius thought that one up.

 

[Taunton]

Going back into the 1960s, I can just remember the occasional Cl.115 [delivered for the London Marylebone Outer Suburban Services], turning-up on Marylebone-Nottingham Victoria semi-fasts, in lieu of LHCS [then steam-hauled].

The 08.38 Marylebone-Nottingham and return were a suburban dmu for several years before the main GC line closed. The duty just fitted nicely into an otherwise spare dmu diagram between morning and evening peaks.

The Trans-Pennine, inter-city standard dmus were not that reliable, and regularly substituted by local service Met-Cam units, all the way from Hull to Liverpool and back. Sometimes this was just a couple of cars substituting at one end of the rake, the remainder being the proper cars.

The Glasgow-Edinburgh high speed Class 27 push-pull service, regarded as InterCity, was periodically substituted by a Met-Cam 3-car set, which no way could keep up with the schedule. I wrote about this on the forum here a while back.

Summer Saturday holiday trips had some lengthy runs; there was a Glasgow-Edinburgh-Whitley Bay service into the 1970s that used one, as did Birmingham-Pwllheli.

There were some comparable electric services as well. Waterloo-Portsmouth Harbour on a summer Saturday was high frequency with the old COR main line units, but by late morning they could run out, especially if delays were happening to Up services, and you might then get a nonstop 12-SUB formation at speed down the Portsmouth line.

 

[fowler9]

Although this isn't actually a DMU replacing a loco hauled service the furthest I have been on a 1st generation DMU is from Liverpool to RAF Finningly on a special to an airshow there when I was a kid.

 

[30907]

There were some comparable electric services as well. Waterloo-Portsmouth Harbour on a summer Saturday was high frequency with the old COR main line units, but by late morning they could run out, especially if delays were happening to Up services, and you might then get a nonstop 12-SUB formation at speed down the Portsmouth line.

One of those (at least) was a booked turn to clear the "unreserved" queue at Waterloo.

 

[yorksrob]

Hampshire thumpers occasionally stood in for loco hauled Waterloo - Salisbury services.

 

[Whistler40145]

I wonder if any Thumpers ever worked Waterloo to Exeter as a substitute for loco hauled.


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[QJ]

I wonder if any Thumpers ever worked Waterloo to Exeter as a substitute for loco hauled.

Wonder ye not young Tim. At least one 3H has been noted on the Salisbury to Exeter section of that premier west of England route. I had the dubious pleasure of a 3H from Exeter Saint Davids to Salisbury deputising for a class 50 loco hauled train.

If I remember I will add the details to this thread once I can get to my old notes.

 

[John Webb]

Don't forget there were several classes of 1st-Generation DMUs designed as 'Inter-city' units for longer-distance working as well as those designed for suburban work.

Bill Alcock, writing in his book "A Locoman's Log" (Silver Link Publishing, 1996), describes how he changed from driving steam locos to DMUs and other diesels, and how some DMUs used in the Birmingham area Mondays-Fridays would do longer trips to the seaside and other holiday places during Summer and other holiday weekends.

 

[ChiefPlanner]

WE Cross Country sets used to work South Wales to Birmingham (which was classed as Inter city then)

A good friend of mine once organised a relief special due to a missing train from Holyhead from Crewe to Euston - only calling at Rugby - with a 304 EMU. The Regional Control intervened and cancelled it forward from RY - probably on humanitarian grounds.

 

[yorksrob]

Wonder ye not young Tim. At least one 3H has been noted on the Salisbury to Exeter section of that premier west of England route. I had the dubious pleasure of a 3H from Exeter Saint Davids to Salisbury deputising for a class 50 loco hauled train.

If I remember I will add the details to this thread once I can get to my old notes.

Lucky so and so (although if it was me, I'd be sure to get the carriage with the loo ).

 

[Taunton]

I wonder if any Thumpers ever worked Waterloo to Exeter as a substitute for loco hauled

In the 1970s a Hastings 6L/6B (same Thumping, in fact multiple versions of it) was allocated daily to the through Brighton-Exeter train, via Southampton and Salisbury, which left Brighton in the morning and returned from Exeter in the afternoon, so That Thumping could be heard all across South Somerset. I seem to recall it ran ECS to/from St Leonards depot at the start and end of the day. I can't remember if the formation was normally 6-car or 12-car. It used to handle a lot of Royal Navy traffic between Portsmouth and Plymouth, changing at Fareham and Exeter.

WR Cross Country sets used to work South Wales to Birmingham

This was the Class 120 Swindon cross-country sets in their early years, operating via Hereford, Worcester and Stourbridge Jc. They sometimes used to have a former GWR carriage, generally a Hawksworth SK, tacked on the back, which of course did not do wonders for speed over the summit between Abergavenny and Hereford.

 

[Springs Branch]

........ some DMUs used in the Birmingham area Mondays-Fridays would do longer trips to the seaside and other holiday places during Summer and other holiday weekends.

In the early 1970s, there was a Summer Saturday train from Birmingham to Blackpool and return, rostered for a DMU.
Despite a Class 1 headcode, this stopped at all stations along the WCML, including Winsford, Hartford and Acton Bridge, with end-to-end journey time around 3.5 hrs.

For most of the summer, the train started back from Blackpool mid-afternoon, but in the Illuminations season (September & October) departure from Blackpool North was at 23.00 with arrival in Birmingham at 02.45

I know there were many longish trips on summer Saturdays involving DMUs, but this one always seemed a particularly grueling end to a day at the seaside.
Imagine being out all day & evening, dog tired, quite possibly soaking wet at this time of year, then sitting up half the night on a bus seat, rattling & bouncing down the WCML in a DMU, followed by the delights of Birmingham New Street at 3am.

Dozing in a Mk.I might have been OK - but all night in a DMU?
Especially during the electrification of the northern WCML, when you might find yourself on some interesting diversion around Lancashire (in the dark).

I suppose you could argue no-one made you go to Blackpool.

 

[O L Leigh]

Possibly stretching things a little further, but during the "Sprinterisation" of the cross-country network under Provincial Services sector, 1st gen DMUs would sometimes turn up in place of SuperSprinter DMUs that had themselves only just replaced loco-hauled sets. On the East Anglia routes it was not uncommon to find Cl150s covering for the usual Cl156s, but I can recall at least one occasion where a "Wumpty" 3 car suburban DMU (a Cl117, perhaps) turned up on a Brum to Ipswich service.

On the flipside, I can also recall loco-hauled coaches filling in for a 1st gen DMU on a local service. This included an ETH Cl31/4 dragging 3 or 4 air-con Mk2s in InterCity executive livery normally seen on the Norwich to London run on the Ipswich to Cambridge local service.

O L Leigh

 

[45041]

I remember in the 1980s that there used to be a SO Birmingham New Street - Great Yarmouth and return on, usually a 9 car Class 116 Tyseley suburban set..... OUCH
And I also remember being dragged on, by my parents, of a 6 car Tyseley Class 116 suburban set on a daily Birmingham to, iirc, Holyhead..... this ran literally 10 minutes earlier than the Euston - Holyhead on mk2 coffins....
Of course there were the BNS - Abers and Pwhelli (as previously mentioned)

 

[Bevan Price]

When the Dundee - Edinburgh services were mostly loco hauled, one day 5500x appeared - but unfortunately it wasn't a Deltic - just a single, rather full "bubble car".

 

[Masbroughlad]

I think I remember a Summer weekday in the early 80s being disappointed with a DMU on Sheffield to Skegness via Lincoln. Usually a 31, 37 or other on a rake of mark ones. DMU with low back seats

 

[Taunton]

When the Dundee - Edinburgh services were mostly loco hauled, one day 5500x appeared - but unfortunately it wasn't a Deltic - just a single, rather full "bubble car".

This just reminds me that the only time I ever noticed actual duplicate numbers on the railway was one of these former WR Bubble cars (one converted to parcels only use) in the bays at the east end of Edinburgh Waverley, with a Deltic alongside.

The 56xxx dmu driving trailers were renumbered to 54xxx to avoid TOPS conflict with the Class 56, but for some reason the 55xxx single units were not done.

 

[Oswyntail]

On the "long distance DMU " aspect of the thread, my number books from the early 60s tell me that the Blackpool line saw DMUs from Eastern, North Eastern, Midland and Scottish number sets regularly, including some of the Marylebone ones. Never any Western ones, just as we never saw Western engines - though we had the occasional Southern Spamcan.

 

[Taunton]

...the Blackpool line saw .... some of the Marylebone ones.

I doubt the actual Marylebone ones would make it that far. However, five of the "Marylebone" 4-car high-powered suburban units were allocated long term, in fact from new, to Liverpool Allerton depot, from where they operated as standard the hourly fast trains on the old CLC line from Liverpool to Manchester, and I can imagine would be most useful for off-peak excursion trips to Blackpool.

Regarding "Western" engines, the loading gauge of the old GWR was slightly wider than others at platform height, and the cylinders of the larger Western types were built to take advantage of this, thus they were out of gauge for much of the system outside their own area. Once the diesels came along, the WR of course went for hydraulics, and crews outside their area would have no training on what all the very different knobs in the cab did, so they weren't welcome either.

There were of course occasional accidental forays by Western locos to where they were not allowed, particularly onto the Southern, and little scrape marks along the cylinder covers were a bit of a telltale.

 

[Oswyntail]

I didn't know that - thanks.

 

[Welshman]

I doubt the actual Marylebone ones would make it that far. However, five of the "Marylebone" 4-car high-powered suburban units were allocated long term, in fact from new, to Liverpool Allerton depot, from where they operated as standard the hourly fast trains on the old CLC line from Liverpool to Manchester, and I can imagine would be most useful for off-peak excursion trips to Blackpool.

I remember them being used on the CLC from Manchester Central to Liverpool Central, and rode on one as a boy. I was particularly impressed with the 1st Class seats being allocated in the middle of these units, not at the ends, so you could enjoy a driver's eye view without paying a fortune, or be forever glancing over your shoulder for the approaching TCC!

I also recall their relative high power enabled them to make a creditable effort on maintaining the traditional 40 minute schedules from Manchester to Liverpool, especially when Widnes and Warrington were by-passed.

I also remember riding on one from Leeds City to York in the early 1960s. The N.E.R. must have been testing its capabilities on routes east of the Pennines, but for whatever reason, they were not introduced - the N.E.R. seeming to prefer Met.Cam and BRCW units.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---
Not quite in the "dmu vice loco-hauled" category, but remembering dmus being used for long-distance excursions when they still had their novelty value, the North Eastern and London Midland regions ran a "Trans-Pennine" dmu from Leeds City to Tywyn [then Towyn] on a couple of Sundays shortly after their introduction in 1961, as presumably they had a set spare on a Sunday.

I tried to persuade my parents to book seats on one of them, but by the time they got round to it, they were both fully-booked! But I would dearly have loved to know which route they used.

 

[30907]

the North Eastern and London Midland regions ran a "Trans-Pennine" dmu from Leeds City to Tywyn [then Towyn] on a couple of Sundays shortly after their introduction in 1961. I would dearly have loved to know which route they used.

Interesting question - the regular Cambrian service was very sparse in those days, even in summer - there was only the Sunday version of the York-Aber mails (via Oswestry in those days, and pausing there for 3 hours to boot), plus a connection from Machynlleth to Barmouth - and back in the evening. Plus an unbalanced Welshpool-Shrewsbury connection off the evening train.
Nothing via Dolgellau or north of Barmouth.

My guess would therefore be that they went Crewe-Whitchurch-Oswestry-Welshpool, unless there was an excursion from the West Midlands the same day to justify opening via Westbury(Salop) in the morning. Either way, must have been plenty of overtime for the signalmen (sic!)...

But it's only a guess, and I wouldn't be surprised to find someone on here who actually knew the answer!

 

[Springs Branch]

I doubt the actual Marylebone ones would make it that far. However, five of the "Marylebone" 4-car high-powered suburban units were allocated long term, in fact from new, to Liverpool Allerton depot, from where they operated as standard the hourly fast trains on the old CLC line from Liverpool to Manchester, and I can imagine would be most useful for off-peak excursion trips to Blackpool.

That's interesting. I remember the 4-car suburban units appearing each hour at Manchester Piccadilly Platform 13 in the 1970s.

I always wondered - when every other DMU service in the north-west was operated by low density units - why the Liverpool-Manchester CLC line needed a dedicated sub-fleet of special DMU. I assumed the route must be very busy at certain times of day, requiring the 4 cars and high-density, one-door-per-bay seating. The trains never looked particularly busy when I saw them, but now I see it was all about speed, not capacity.

Regarding appearance of Class 115s at Blackpool in the 1960s, this was likely not very common by the 1970s. At that time, regular Liverpool - Blackpool through trains only ran once a day in summer, leaving Lime Street around 09.30 / 10.00, via St.Helens Junction, Earlestown and Newton-le-Willows. It was usually assembled from Allerton's other staple product: 2-car Derby Class 108s, made up into 6 or 8 car sets. The multiple DMUs looked very purposeful, with all engines going full throttle, trying to hit 70mph along the WCML line between Golborne and Wigan. If a few minutes late, the 08.00 Euston to Glasgow would be on its tail, requiring the DMU to be put into the down loop (platform 6) at Wigan NW.