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DMU standins

317362

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Another post inspired by an old Motive Power Monthly, the November 1989 edition has a 3 car Reading Class 101 L835 covering the Poole-Liverpool (seen at Liverpool, doesn't confirm where it started)

Even if it started at Reading or Oxford, still a fair way...anyone beat that on a substitution basis?
 

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Ianigsy

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I was once on a Longsight Class 108 which covered a Manchester-Cardiff return trip in the early 1990s which lost about 45 minutes off the schedule and nearly conked out completely somewhere a few miles south of Shrewsbury. Effectively a double substitution, because it was covering a diagram which was usually covered by a Cardiff 37/4 while the 155s were being replaced by 158s.
 
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Not up there in terms of distance, but I recall seeing a photo in Motive Power Monthly c.1986 of an Allerton allocated class 115 in Hull having just covered a Liverpool to Hull service vice a class 31/4. IIRC the unit wasn't fitted with a toilet (!)

And wandering slightly off topic to EMUs, WAGN class 317s and the West Yorkshire Metro 321s both covered London to Leeds services in the early 2000s vice class 91+MK4, when some cracks were found in MK4 wheelsets.
 

Magdalia

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And wandering slightly off topic to EMUs, WAGN class 317s and the West Yorkshire Metro 321s both covered London to Leeds services in the early 2000s vice class 91+MK4, when some cracks were found in MK4 wheelsets.
This was in June 1998, after the Sandy derailment.

Classes 317 and 321 have also covered Liverpool Street-Norwich trains at various times in the past.
 

The exile

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Not able to beat the length of journey but Birmingham NS to Taunton in a Tyseley suburban set (127 trailer, IIRC) was an interesting element of a Scotland - West Country journey in (I think) 1986. It was a knock on effect of S&C diversions.
 

Taunton

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Glasgow to Edinburgh in a Met-Cam 101 standing in for the 2x27 push-pull in the 1970s described here:

 

Gloster

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At the beginning of the 1980s the Leeds (or Bradford)-Paignton was so late on a sunny summer weekday that they put one of Tyseley’s suburban DMUs on as relief from New Street: toilet stops at Bristol and Exeter. It went back empty.
 

Pigeon

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I remember on several occasions in the late 70s the 1720 SuO WOS-PAD (originating from Hereford) being operated by a long string of high-density DMUs - they seemed concerned to maintain a similar number of carriages to the normal rake of Mk2s with a 47 on the front, even though this meant there were maybe 2 people in each carriage. That was painful, especially beyond Oxford.
 

norbitonflyer

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I did once see at Kings Cross an 8-car train formed of four class 114 units (rarely seen outsie the East Midlands and West Riding) working a service to Doncaster. Not strictly a substitution as it was during a national railway strike and the normal timetable was completely suspended.
 

RT4038

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In about 1980 I rode in a Bubble Car (+3 car DMU) from Birmingham New Street to York one Sunday afternoon, in substitution for a very late SW-NE train.
 

Harpo

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I did once see at Kings Cross an 8-car train formed of four class 114 units (rarely seen outsie the East Midlands and West Riding) working a service to Doncaster. Not strictly a substitution as it was during a national railway strike and the normal timetable was completely suspended.
I similarly recall the main train shed at KX getting smoked out by a long raft of power twins in the 1982 strike.

If I recall correctly, Peterboro drivers were predominantly NUR and Leicester too I believe.
 

Clarence Yard

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No, Peterborough was almost all ASLEF. Iirc, the DMU’s used in that 1982 service to Peterborough/KX were crewed by Leeds (and Doncaster?) NUR men, who went straight back with the train they had brought south.

Relations between ASLEF and the NUR were never that good but that particular Leeds-KX “scabbing” took them to a new low and, afterwards, the atmosphere in some mess rooms got a bit tasty.
 

308165

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101685 turned out in lieu of a 37/4 on a Crewe - Holyhead and return circa 1998 or 99. I wasn't best pleased, if i'd wanted a 101 I could have gone to Manchester!
 

norbitonflyer

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I similarly recall the main train shed at KX getting smoked out by a long raft of power twins in the 1982 strike.

If I recall correctly, Peterboro drivers were predominantly NUR and Leicester too I believe.
Yes, I think it would have been c 1982. Of course, 114s were not power twins. Were their Albion engines (also seen on classes 115 and 127) smokier than the standard Leyland 0680s? (most dmus had had their original BUT or AEC engines replaced with 0680s by then)
 

Clarence Yard

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The BUT L engines were Leyland 0680! The A engines were AEC 220.

No, the Albions on the 114 sets didn’t push out as much smoke as the normal 150 hp cars did but the Albions on the 115 sets fairly crackled when accelerating hard away from stations.
 

MadMac

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Yes, I think it would have been c 1982. Of course, 114s were not power twins. Were their Albion engines (also seen on classes 115 and 127) smokier than the standard Leyland 0680s? (most dmus had had their original BUT or AEC engines replaced with 0680s by then)
Weren’t the 127s Rolls-Royce?
 

sh24

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A 205 + 207 combo from Salisbury to Exeter St David’s. A fine sound heading up to Honiton Tunnel. Sadly it went back ECS so I didn’t get to enjoy the thrash up the hill to Exeter Central.

Good memory now, at the time I was probably vexed it wasn’t a 50. :D
 
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Taunton

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As I understand it, the Albion engines were just 8-cylinder 230hp versions of the common 6-cylinder Leyland 150hp engines. Leyland had owned Albion since about 1950, and used the brand for their more heavyweight commercial vehicles, mostly for export.

Likewise the Rolls-Royce higher powered engines (actually designed and built by Sentinel in Shrewsbury) were 8-cylinder 238hp versions of the 6-cylinder 180hp units used in some North Eastern Region cars.

BUT (British United Traction) appears to have been just a joint sales and marketing front organisation for Leyland and AEC, who in most other respects such as building of buses were direct competitors of one another at the time. The engines don't seem to have been interchangeable at all, in their road vehicles for example the exhausts were on opposite sides of the block, and presumably all the spares etc were quite different.

Of the three principal manufacturers of diesel engines of this type and size in road vehicles in the era (far and away the main market), Leyland, AEC and Gardner, notable that the railcars only used the first two, and excluded Gardner, whereas for the small BR diesel shunters built at the same time Gardner powered them all and the railcar engine builders were not used.
 
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norbitonflyer

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Of the three principal manufacturers of diesel engines of this type and size in road vehicles in the era (far and away the main market), Leyland, AEC and Gardner, notable that the railcars only used the first two, and excluded Gardner, whereas for the small BR diesel shunters built at the same time Gardner powered them all and the railcar engine builders were not used.
I assume there is a reason for that - maybe the Gardner engines didn't fit under the floor of a dmu, or didn't like lying horizontally?
 

Taunton

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There were plenty of buses with the Gardner engine horizontal. You do need some differences of design, for example where the oil sump is, because regardless of how you mount an engine you can't defeat which way gravity drains things.
 

61653 HTAFC

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Not sure if it counts as it's just a worse DMU substituted for a more appropriate one, but in Northern Spirit/ATN days (and indeed prior to privatisation) it wasn't unheard of for 142s or 144s to find themselves on TransPennine fasts.
 
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Not sure if it counts as it's just a worse DMU substituted for a more appropriate one, but in Northern Spirit/ATN days (and indeed prior to privatisation) it wasn't unheard of for 142s or 144s to find themselves on TransPennine fasts.
Indeed, I've worked as a trolley steward on a 142 covering Hull to Manchester Piccadilly on a couple of occasions. A 144 once did a York to Manchester Airport service but got swapped out at Huddersfield and proudly stood there for several hours with its paper window labels still in place!
In Northern days a 144 covered a York to Blackpool service on at least one occasion; I travelled on it from Leeds to Burnley.
The oddest Pacer substitution I've seen was 142051 back in 1993. It called at Manchester Piccadilly working a Liverpool to Norwich service, but I don't know how far it went. The passengers faces were a picture!!
 

matchmaker

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There were I believe some examples of 156s being used in place of 158s on Glasgow-Edinburgh and Glasgow-Aberdeen services (the latter would have been interesting, as before the 158's both services would have been 47/7 on a push-pull set!)
 

Bevan Price

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When the 17:xx Manchester Piccadilly - Holyhead was still loco hauled, on one day a pair of 142s was substituted. Fortunately I was only travelling as far as Earlestown... Comments overheard from some of the other passengers were far from complimentary.
 

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Just found another one in MPM, with picture alongside. The multicoloured Midline bubblecar and a Cross City 115 on a Euston - New Street at Watford (photo A Swain)
 

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Taunton

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I suppose EMU stand-ins are much fewer, but one I recall from the days of 12-car REP/TC expresses on South Western was a single 4-VEP turning up at Southampton Parkway, about 10 minutes late, at a time when the service then ran nonstop to Waterloo. With everyone squished in 5-across it then ran absolutely flat out, made up much of the delay, and got to Waterloo in under an hour. I never had such a run before or since.
 

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