LMS railcars
The London, Midland and Scottish Railway purchased three four-wheel diesel railcars from Leyland in 1933. They were numbered 29950-29952 (in the multiple unit section of their carriage number series). They each had a 95hp diesel engine fitted and worked mainly in Scotland. They were inherited by British Rail at Nationalisation, but were withdrawn in the early 1950s, so never received TOPS classification.
Articulated unit
In 1937 the LMS decided to produce a more modern diesel train. This was a three-car articulated railcar which was outshopped from Derby Carriage and Wagon Works in 1939. The cars were numbered 80000, 80001 and 80002.
The streamlined three-car train was a single articulated unit; the two outer coaches were each 64ft long and rested on a centre coach that was 52ft long. The articulation was an idea that had been already taken up by Sir William Stanier for some locomotive hauled stock.
Mechanically the train was a development of the railcars that had entered service from 1933 on the LMS Northern Counties Committee's (NCC) lines in Northern Ireland, using an identical arrangement of in-line powertrain as NCC railcars Nos.2-4. Under each coach were two vertically mounted Leyland 125bhp diesel engines driving the inner axle of each bogie through a Lysholm-Smith torque converter. There were six engines for the three-car set which gave a total power of 750bhp. As the whole unit weighed 73 tons, this yielded a power/weight ratio of slightly more than 10bhp/ton which provided a mailine standard of performance with a maximum speed of 75 mph.
It was first used on the Oxford-Cambridge line and then on St Pancras-Nottingham services. A second unit was planned but never built and No.80000/80001/80002 was withdrawn in 1939 on the outbreak of World War II; it never re-entered passenger service.
In 1949 it was converted to a two-car set for overhead line maintenance. The centre car was removed and the number of engines in the set reduced to two. The driving cabs were given flat ends, all the passenger seats were removed and the roof was flattened. It worked on the Manchester-Altrincham route.
The design may be seen as a step in the development of post-war British Railways diesel multiple units(DMU) such as the Derby Lightweight units, at least as far the powertrain was concerned.
See also
References
- The Development of the Railcar by R W Kidner, published by the Oakwood Press in 1958
- Diesel Rail Cars (An Introduction) by R H Mann, published by the Draughtsmen's and Allied Technicians' Association in 1963
- Diesel Dawn by Colm Flanagan published by Colourpoint Books, Newtownards in 2003, ISBN 1 904242 08 1
External links