As far as Scotland is concerned, I don't think that they saved any lines from total closure, but they probably prolonged services for a few extra years. As a child, I remember seeing them - and on one occasion riding on them - on the Craigendoran-Arrochar local service at the Southern end of the West Highland Line. Our local station at Rhu had been closed in 1956 and lost its signal box and passing loop. It was reopened, as a single-platformed unstaffed halt, when the service changed over from a steam-worked push-pull set to a diesel railbus in 1960. This undoubtably brought about a huge saving in operating costs, but the railbuses were not very reliable and frequently had to be replaced by a class 27 with two old suburban coaches. This increased traincrew and fuel costs and caused time loss because of the need to run round at each terminating station. Eventually, BR gave up and the service was withdrawn after the 1964 Summer season. Other Scottish services which used raibuses in the 'sixties were Grangemouth-Falkirk-Larbert-Alloa, Gleneagles-Crieff-Comrie, Aviemore-Craigellachie, Kilmarnock-Troon-Ayr and Ayr-Dalmellington....none of which were saved by them, although the Kilmarnock-Troon line, which had remained open for freight traffic, was subsequently reopened to passengers in the late 'seventies.
With bus companies converting routes with that size of vehicle to one-man-operation, the possibility of a diesel railbus with a two man crew only stopping at a few stations and halts rather than roadside bus stops, being more economic than a replacement bus, was remote in the extreme. I don't think any of the routes that they regularly ran were saved from closure. I believe that they did attract additional custom on some lines, but starting from a very low base. Hopeless.
They may have been a forerunner of the Pacer from a mechanical point of view, but commercially the Pacers had a much larger capacity (at least two double deck bus loads).
Or, put another way, it was a convenient economy using the redundant cars from Tetbury and Cirencester that had already closed.
That one peak working was probably what kept the passenger service going ( schools traffic). An all-day single Schienenbus service with no peak strengthening probably meant no significant school traffic, so high up the endangered list when money was tight ( which it wasn’t quite so often in Baden-Wuerttemberg).
According to the German Wikipedia pages the train service from Staufen on the Munstertalbahn to Sulzburg was withdrawn in 1969 and the goods service in 1973; this section was lifted within a few years. Goods remained as far as an industry at Grunern (1.8 km) until it went bust in 1996.
I was thinking specifically of the 4-wheeled Uerdingen Schienenbus (class 795/798 an trailers) and the DR 771/772; there was other similar designs for Non-DB operators.
Airfix did one of the 5, can't remember which.
About par for modernisation plan stuff!
The Worth Valley line has two of the German-built railbuses.
The Worth Valley line has two of the German-built railbuses.
Scroll down page at:
Rolling stock of the Keighley & Worth Valley Railway - Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org
I was lucky enough to see it moving around the yard this time last year, and took this photo.
A very nice example with the unit immaculately presented.
This being the DR version - unsurprisingly, the route it was working here in 1996 was gone before the year was outI was thinking specifically of the 4-wheeled Uerdingen Schienenbus (class 795/798 an trailers) and the DR 771/772; there was other similar designs for Non-DB operators.
I suspect SWEG were using a bogie car by the date you mention, but it's not my specialist subject
.If only they had known about a chap called Rick Stein in the sixties. A (Plymouth)-Bodmin Road-Bodmin-Wadebridge-Padstow service would, today, probably make money, in summer at least, but it wasn't just Beeching, the Western Region was determined to eliminate as much of the old Southern in its patch as possible.
