The History of First Generation DMUs

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The Railcar website provides information on the British Railways first generation DMUs (a.k.a. diesel multiple units / railcars) introduced in the 1950s.

The content of this website

The six key sections of the website are:

• Types - looks at each type of DMU in detail
• Topics - features articles on different aspects of the vehicles and personal recollections
• Technology - describes the technical details of how they work
• Data - various lists of numerical details
• Images - galleries featuring DMUs
• In Print - details the books and other printed materials made available over the years that have relevance

Details of railcars in preservation can be found on The Railcar Association website.

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Date on DMUs

Vehicle / Set Data

To view details of a particular vehicle or set enter the number below:

Vehicle:

       

Set No:

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DMU Images Wanted!

Do you have photos of First Generation DMUs? The more images we have the better we can tell the DMU story and make it more useful to visitors. Images can be loaded directly onto the site - just register as a user and upload! Alternatively if you have images on flickr or another website I can do the uploads for you - just let me know.

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Scope

This website contains details about the First Generation DMUs. This includes the 4-wheel diesel railbuses, ACV / BUT railcars, the Battery Multiple Unit (BMU) and Blue Pullmans. It covers the period from their introduction to British Railways in the 1950s till their withdrawal and disposal from main-line use, but NOT preservation.

Because of the vast amount of data that this covers and the amount of information I have still to process I cannot include the DEMUs introduced on the Southern Region in the same era, nor Second Generation or later types.

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Updates

March 22nd

Added is a BR booklet listing all the brakework items along with part and drawing numbers, for Birmingham built diesel railcars. Dated 1959, this only covers the Class 104s. Download PDF (11mb pdf).

March 15th

A page has been created for fault finding booklets, with the first three added from the Eastern Region, 1966 (2.5mb PDF), Scottish Region, 1960 (1.2mb PDF), and Southern Region, 1968 (1.3mb PDF).

March 8th

Some more operation/timetable pages have been started: Witham - Braintree; Wrexham - Chester - New Brighton; York - Scarborough; Corstorphine - Edinburgh; and Reading - Bedwyn.

March 1st

Added to the cyclic diagrams page is another Southern Region Carriage Working Notice for Diesel Trains on the South Western Division, for Summer 1965 (12mb PDF).

February 22nd

Added are a DMU training manual (4mb pdf), courtesy of the Dean Forest DMU Group, and a British United Traction brochure from circa 1953 (3.2mb pdf).

February 15th

Some more operation/timetable pages have been started: St. Margaret's - Buntingford; Nottingham - Lincoln; Leeds - Pontefract; Glasgow - Stranraer; and Newport - Brynmawr.

February 1st

Added to the cyclic diagrams page are two Southern Region Carriage Working Notices for the South Western Divisions, one for Summer 1966 (6mb PDF) and one for Winter 1966 (9mb PDF). These detailed the Western Region DMU sets that worked into the area.

January 25th

Added are some samples of Failure Sheets from the Norwich Division dated August 1968, and information on Great Eastern 2-digit headcodes.