Most unusual/unexpected unit allocation you’ve been on?

[ChiefPlanner]

Short of 313's a couple of days in 1996 , so I put a 117 DMU on (a) Euston - Watford DC line (b) Camden Road - Stratford peak shuttle.

Both lost time , partly because passengers were not used to having to open /close slam doors. Still , saved some cancellations otherwise........

 

[Beebman]

One snowy day in February 1982 I travelled from Staines to Reading on a 4 x 2-EPB (BR type) formation instead of the usual VEP or CIG. Also around the same time the SWD would 'borrow' 4-CEPs sitting at Clapham Junction on their way to or from Swindon for refurbishment and I once had an unrefurbished one from Reading.

Meanwhile on the WR, one Sunday evening in the late 70s I travelled on a Tyseley 4-car Class 116 + 122 formation from Paddington to Twyford.

 

[Peter Mugridge]

In the "wrong snow" event there was a veritable haulage fest of locomotives being coupled to EMUs on the South Eastern routes; I had a 56 propelling a pair of EPBs from London Bridge to New Cross and a 47/3 propelling a CEP from Waterloo East to Cannon Street... and there was a lot more of this sort of thing going on all over the division...

 

[Julia]

Back in the days of a booked 47+8xMk2 on the Kings Lynn - Liverpool St, a six-car Cravens mashup substituting for a failure.

 

[Falcon1200]

One Saturday evening in August 1977 - Possibly the 13th - I and two friends, on an East Midlands Railrover with our bikes so that we could visit loco sheds, cycled from Wath Depot to Mexborough to get a train to Doncaster where we would spend the night on the station. Instead of the expected DMU, in came Knottingley's 47310 with a Mark 1 set. I believe this was a Sheffield-York train and was the return working of a Scarborough-Sheffield service. I have no records from that time but this one has stuck in the memory!

 

[317362]

Bit of a stretch and in the 'heard about' rather than 'went on' but will sort a list from some old magazines I am currently going through