Why did Swindon design their own cab for these? Seems a strange thing to do when the Gloucester units which were also built for the same job on the WR using more or less the same plans used standard Derby cabs.
We discussed this before, unlike other BR Regions every build of dmu for the WR (BR Derby, Gloucester, Pressed Steel, Birmingham RCW) was specified with the Derby cab (which I believe were actually built at Derby and supplied to the contractors) apart from the WR's own build at Swindon.
They were initially run on the WR from Cardiff, Tyseley and Bristol, from where they ranged far and wide, although not to London, in conjunction with the comparable Gloucester-built units which were to the same layout and drawings (apart from the cabs!). The ones at Tyseley passed to the LMR and later came to the longer distance services elsewhere there. Bristol also had suburban units, although not a lot of suburban services, and seemed to use them indiscriminately, with a suburban unit being sent to Weymouth while a 120 ran to Severn Beach.
A WR final batch was built later, with 4-character indicators, and ran from Plymouth, these had a couple of runs to Taunton when the intermediate stations were still open on the main line, where they might just catch sight of the older Bristol-based units but never seemed to overlap duties.
The interior layout was notably poor, with an oversized van space, a buffet that was hardly ever used (I never saw it so), and excessive first class for the services they ran. They really only had two cars-worth of standard class seating. I wonder if substituting the Met-Cam trailers in some sets was about increasing seating (albeit 3+2) and improving power-to-weight ratio.
Mentioned above is the separate small batch also built for Aberdeen to Inverness, fitted with Manson's tablet exchange equipment (possibly off a steam loco), which because the cab was single-manned were fitted at the guard's door, who was responsible for the exchange, following which there were a series of special buzzer codes to the driver about how well it had gone, pasted up by the door and still there long after the automatic exchange had been given up, and some of the cars transferred far away.
