Does anyone know when the LEV1 prototype was withdrawn ?

[Justin Smith]

I have been bought Colin Marsden`s book on Second Generation DMUs for Xmas, but it doesn`t say when the LEV1 prototype railbus was actually withdrawn. Does anyone know this information ?
Also was the LEV1 just the earlier unpowered test chassis unit, but fitted with an engine and transmssion ?

 

[DaveNewcastle]

(I hope others will have more reliable memories, but . . . ) I think it began life unpowered in '78, was powered in '79, and withdrawn in '80.
A short working life, but some might say that they're still here to haunt us - as Pacers

 

[EM2]

Just remind me what LEV-1 was? Prototype Pacer?

 

[DaveNewcastle]

Just remind me what LEV-1 was?

To the casual observer, it looked like a Leyland National bus chassis bolted onto a rigid railway trailer chassis. And to the better informed professional with an engineering background, it didn't just look like a bus top on a rail chassis- you could clearly see that that is exactly what it was! A bus on rails, but with a cab welded onto either end. Even kept the buss's orange indicator lens glasses.
I've found this pic : rail bus pic

And this was from about the time when we started hearing about the "WHITE HEAT OF LEADING EDGE TECHNOLOGY" and "the silicon revolution which will make most physical labour unneccessary". Wrong on most counts, eh? Especially the bus on rails.

 

[Justin Smith]

And this was from about the time when we started hearing about the "WHITE HEAT OF LEADING EDGE TECHNOLOGY" and "the silicon revolution which will make most physical labour unneccessary". Wrong on most counts, eh? Especially the bus on rails.

I thought "The White Heat of Technology" was coined by Harold Wilson in the 60s ? ! ?

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(I hope others will have more reliable memories, but . . . ) I think it began life unpowered in '78, was powered in '79, and withdrawn in '80.

That more or less chimes in with what I`ve been able to research, other than the initial body was constructed (at Leyland`s factory in Workington) in 1977.
This first bodyshell appeared to have doors (normal bus type 4 leaf folding doors) at each end , but on the same side ! If that`s correct I couldn`t help wondering how they ever expected the initial layout to be practical for rail use.
When I get the chance I shall look through my volumes of Railway Magazine for 1977 to 1980 and see what they say.

 

[Wyvern]

It was built on a modification of HSFV1 the high speed freight vehicle chassis.
These are some photos from Colin Marsden's "25 Years of Railway Research" (reproduced for the purpose of review or education ) from those halcyon days when British Railways led the world.

The White Heat of Technology was well over by the end of the 70s and it looked as though there would be a fresh round of lie closures. LEV1 was assembled at Litchuch Lane from two bus bodies for lthe Research in Derby in 1979 to try and forestall this.

This LEV1 parked up at Deby (The building behind has now gone as well)

LEV1 at Ipswich

At Redland. In 1981 it was was used in passenger service on the Bristol-Severn Beach line. Shoretly after this it was sold to the Northern Ireland Railways.

Note the ends were not identical. According to Wikipedia about five variants were built.

One is now on the North Norfolk Railway:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Lev1nnr.jpg

 

[RPM]

The third (Redland) picture shows the R3 railbus; a different vehicle to LEV1. After service with NIR it was preserved in Northern Ireland.

There was also a LEV2 railbus which IIRC was built for the USA and later preserved there.

Two more single car railbus demonstrators were also built, both with class 141type cabs. One went to the USA and Canada for evaluation and the other was tested in Denmark and Sweden. Both were later repatriated but never ran in service in this country. One of them was later used as a mobile classroom at Derby works but I don't know if it still exists.

There was also a two car railbus, looking very much like a 141, but built to metre gauge and demonstrated in Thailand, and I think possibly Malaysia also. This one was never returned.

There was also the two car class 140 prototype, now preserved.

 

[poshbakerloo]

Thank god it went! looks like a cheap peace of junk!

 

[Wyvern]

Thank god it went! looks like a cheap peace of junk!

???????????????

It was the basis of the Pacer series.

 

[90019]

There was also the two car class 140 prototype, now preserved.

140;
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8c/British_Rail_class_140.jpg


Along similar lines, there was the experimental coach 977091;
http://www.rollingstock.fotopic.net/p51133840.html
"977091 was an Expermiment coach, built from a mix of three Leyland bus shells fused to a Mk1 underframe (from Mk1 21234) at the EDU Derby."

 

[poshbakerloo]

???????????????

It was the basis of the Pacer series.

take a look. 1 wheel at each corner...that means a bad ride. 1 door at each end...means long loading times. 1 car...means over crowding...

all in all, not very good

 

[Wyvern]

Along similar lines, there was the experimental coach 977091;
http://www.rollingstock.fotopic.net/p51133840.html
"977091 was an Expermiment coach, built from a mix of three Leyland bus shells fused to a Mk1 underframe (from Mk1 21234) at the EDU Derby."

British Rail had done something like this two decades before using an old LMS? coach with windows cut in the ends to test the mechanics for the first Period 1 Derby DMU's. Twas tested on the Wirksworth Branch. I doubt if there's any pictures anywhere.

 

[DaveNewcastle]

. . . perhaps this?
Mobile Test Unit at NRM York
There were a few variants of MTU constructed, with windows at the ends (as shown here) and with windows in "bulges" at either side like this.
These MTUs contained instrumentation for evaluating the vehicles under test, and some (perhaps all?) had auxilliary diesel engines and could add proportional break loading to the vehicle under test.

 

[Wyvern]

I'm not that old!

This would be early fifties

It was not a dynamometer train, it was to test the diesel engine and transmission

 

[DaveNewcastle]

okay, okay so I was wrong. But I bet there's not many test or experimental vehicles which aren't listed in this website of 3000 pics of departmental vehicles! There's pretty comprehensive indexing if you know the veh. numbers. Sorry, but I don't!
Worth a look though . . .

 

[royaloak]

These would be the 2-
975874 - Experimental Railbus LEV1
977020 - Experimental Railbus R3

 

[route:oxford]

To the casual observer, it looked like a Leyland National bus chassis bolted onto a rigid railway trailer chassis. And to the better informed professional with an engineering background, it didn't just look like a bus top on a rail chassis- you could clearly see that that is exactly what it was! A bus on rails, but with a cab welded onto either end. Even kept the buss's orange indicator lens glasses.
I've found this pic : rail bus pic

It doesn't really look too bad...

Is it time for Alexander Dennis & similar be approached to build a new lightweight unit for the railways.

Buses have moved on quite considerably since 1979.

 

[asylumxl]

You mean a PPM?

 

[route:oxford]

PPM wouldn't be ideal.

Something that works from day one and keeps working reliably is more what I'm thinking about.

Modern buses are all fully DDA compliant and use fairly standardised components, combine that with a standardised bogie and it should be viable.

Would just take someone to order say 300 units...

 

[mallard]

PPM wouldn't be ideal.

Something that works from day one and keeps working reliably is more what I'm thinking about.

Modern buses are all fully DDA compliant and use fairly standardised components, combine that with a standardised bogie and it should be viable.

Would just take someone to order say 300 units...

Not a bad idea... a three-bogied articulated bendybus on rails would make a pretty viable pacer replacement...

 

[krus_aragon]

Not a bad idea... a three-bogied articulated bendybus on rails would make a pretty viable pacer replacement...

What would the cyclists say?

 

[Wyvern]

okay, okay so I was wrong. But I bet there's not many test or experimental vehicles which aren't listed in this website of 3000 pics of departmental vehicles! There's pretty comprehensive indexing if you know the veh. numbers. Sorry, but I don't!
Worth a look though . . .

I'll have a look then.

Thanks

 

[route:oxford]

Not a bad idea... a three-bogied articulated bendybus on rails would make a pretty viable pacer replacement...

Why not make it 4?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Gvu_916_tuinen.jpg

Carries 170 passengers...

 

[Justin Smith]

Perusal of my back issues of The Railway Magazine has not revealled when the LEV1 was actually withdrawn, though there was a picture of it still in use on June the 27th 1981.

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There is a picture of the LEV1 in use on the 16th of July 1983 (at Crossflatts) about one third of the way down this page :
http://www.lostrailwayswestyorkshire.co.uk/Multiple Units.htm

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BINGO !
Railway Magazine (April 1987 p252), LEV1 withdrawn and "delivered by road to the NRM".

 

[Wyvern]

Right, I've found some info on all of this about when they were built but not what has become of them.

************

LEV was first tested in unpowered form in 1978. Rebuilt as a powered vehicle in 1979.

Jones, Mitchell, Goldfinch, "The railbus development" Railway Engineer, 1982 iss3: pp16-19

It consisted of Leyland body modules on a variant of the HSFV chassis using flexicoil springing.

Smith B L "Development of railbus suspension" proc I. Mech. E. Conference on Railbus Systems, November 1982 pp 57-68

At this time a two car variant was in design to be introduced as the Class 140 in 1981.

In 1980 LEV was demonstrated in the USA to the Federal Railroad Administration

Grffin, T., "BR's railbus in the USA" Modern Railways August 1980 pp349-351

THE FRA ordered a longer version which was the R3 built by Wickhams with Leyland and BREL as subcontractors. This shipped in 1980

Railway Gazette International November 1980 p979

A second was built as a demonstrator. This the one shown on the Bristol and Severn Beach line. It was then converted to 1.6m gauge and sold to NIR in 1982.

Railway Gazette International September 1982 p693

Futher demonstrators were built for Thailand and Denmark

Railway Gazette International March and July !984

All this from a paper by Alistair Gilchrist "A history of engineering research on British Railways" Institute of Railway Studies and Transport History

 

[SouthEastern-465]

What a pile of old s***!

Now that has a very uncanny look to a bus awful thing too and probally where the pacers earned there look from aswell.

 

[Justin Smith]

Right, I've found some info on all of this about when they were built but not what has become of them.

************

LEV was first tested in unpowered form in 1978. Rebuilt as a powered vehicle in 1979.

Jones, Mitchell, Goldfinch, "The railbus development" Railway Engineer, 1982 iss3: pp16-19

It consisted of Leyland body modules on a variant of the HSFV chassis using flexicoil springing.

Smith B L "Development of railbus suspension" proc I. Mech. E. Conference on Railbus Systems, November 1982 pp 57-68

At this time a two car variant was in design to be introduced as the Class 140 in 1981.

In 1980 LEV was demonstrated in the USA to the Federal Railroad Administration

Grffin, T., "BR's railbus in the USA" Modern Railways August 1980 pp349-351

THE FRA ordered a longer version which was the R3 built by Wickhams with Leyland and BREL as subcontractors. This shipped in 1980

Railway Gazette International November 1980 p979

A second was built as a demonstrator. This the one shown on the Bristol and Severn Beach line. It was then converted to 1.6m gauge and sold to NIR in 1982.

Railway Gazette International September 1982 p693

Futher demonstrators were built for Thailand and Denmark

Railway Gazette International March and July !984

All this from a paper by Alistair Gilchrist "A history of engineering research on British Railways" Institute of Railway Studies and Transport History

Excellent.

 

[Wyvern]

Excellent.

Thanks.

For completeness here's the page from traintesting.com that the picture above came from, which carries a bit more detail.

EDIT: Look at the last one for Thailand. Can you imagine 260 people in a single car of a Pacer?

 

[Justin Smith]

I must say that most sources seem to say that LEV1 started off as an unpowered test vehicle (built late 1977 to early 1978) and then had an engine and transmission added in 1979, i.e. it was the same vehicle.

However Colin Marsden`s book (Second Generation DMUs) say`s :

Initially an unpowered short underframe four wheeled trailer......... was put together and first seen by the public and railway press in June 1977.

In 1979 an actual demonstration vehicle was assembled at the EDU (Engineering Development Unit - Derby), this had a slightly different body style, was a bit longer and only had one pair of folding passenger doors on each side. (as opposed to two pairs on the same side, which the photographs also show, though it would be possible to add this modification to the original unit).
This implies that it wasn`t the same unit.

For historical accuracy`s sake, what is the truth of the matter ?

 

[Wyvern]

I think I'd go with Alistair Gilchrist who was Head of Mechanical Engineering Research second in command to the Director of Research.