Hastings DEMU queries

[Colin1501]

I've been pondering the Hastings DEMUs recently (classes 201/2/3), and am puzzled by a couple of their design features, and wondered if any knowledgeable members on here might be able to help. The reasons for their narrow bodies and straight sides are well-documented, as to a lesser extent are the short underframes used on the class 201s. However, I don't understand why the vehicles had shallower windows than standard Mark 1 stock. The bottom edges of the windows were level with the bottom edges of the door droplights, as on suburban stock and the later 4-VEP units, whereas the windows on main line Mark 1 coaches were deeper.

More puzzling still was the design of the trailer first vehicle which, with external doors to each compartment and no transverse vestibules, was quite unlike any other main line Mark 1 coach. The trailer second vehicles were essentially standard TSOs, while the trailers in the contemporary 4-CEP electric units were also standard Mark 1 designs, a CK and an SK. Why wasn't a narrow bodied version of the FK used in the Hastings units?

Grateful for any thoughts.

 

[Fawkes Cat]

The bottom edges of the windows were level with the bottom edges of the door droplights, as on suburban stock and the later 4-VEP units, whereas the windows on main line Mark 1 coaches were deeper.

This is no more than speculation on my part, but if (as I think you're implying) the windows were the same as on suburban stock, wouldn't that help the Hastings Units to be built and maintained with standard window components?

 

[yorksrob]

The windows were/are pretty non-standard to any of the other stock being built at the time that I can think of. The ventilators are also taller than on other mk1's I think.

Interesting questions that I've never seen an answer to !

 

[AM9]

The windows were/are pretty non-standard to any of the other stock being built at the time that I can think of. The ventilators are also taller than on other mk1's I think.

Interesting questions that I've never seen an answer to !

Could it be something to do with the flat sides. The curvature on the MKI design is not only to increase width at shoulder height but it also forms a stronger shape in the case of a collision from the side. To provide strength on a flat side, reducing the size of openings (and especially the height of them) would reduce the windows compromising what strength there was.

 

[yorksrob]

Could it be something to do with the flat sides. The curvature on the MKI design is not only to increase width at shoulder height but it also forms a stronger shape in the case of a collision from the side. To provide strength on a flat side, reducing the size of openings (and especially the height of them) would reduce the windows compromising what strength there was.

Maybe. I also wonder whether, given these were the first main line units built for the Southern after WW2, there weren't some elements of Bullied's main line carriage designs brought forward.

 

[30907]

On the FK: it enabled an extra compartment to be fitted in compared with the vestibuled model.
And it allowed all those city gents to leap off the train as it arrived and be first through the barrier

 

[paul1609]

The first batch of the Class 201s were initially built as steam hauled stock before the order was changed mid construction to the demu format. I think they were basically just built as a bespoke Sr design probably using fittings from the existing rolling stock and that this was perpetuated throughout their construction.

 

[Taunton]

It is ironic because Eastleigh was building at the same time (in fact maybe a bit earlier) the first 4-CEP, and being based on the Mk1 they had standard windows. And they had also been building Mk1 hauled stock for some years. Possibly the jigs for these were to the standard Mk1 format, designed at Derby (although most Mk1 concepts carried forward from SR and LNER hauled stock), whereas Eastleigh had to design new custom jigs themselves for the narrow Hastings units, and thus the different team came up with a different result.

I believe the Mk1 stock (and the BR-pattern 4-EPB) were wholly built at Eastleigh, whereas the Hastings units (and the SR-pattern 4-EPB) were built the old Southern Railway way, where the underframe and running gear were built at Ashford or Lancing, and then hauled round to Eastleigh which was just a bodybuilding shop. This is what had happened with the short Hastings units, with the frames as hauled stock, needing to be short to allow space for the locomotive in the tight Charing Cross platforms, had already been built before the change of plan.

All sounds a bit uncoordinated. I was once involved with a government tax scheme where for two comparable processes one had been designed the reverse of the other. Apparently at the initial briefing two separate staff involved took notes, one the opposite way round to the other, and due to some out-of-office social tiff between them they would never speak to each other. By the time the inconsistency was discovered it was felt too late to change, so we all had to work stupidly for years afterwards.