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DMU Depots

Stratford

30A	(ER)	1948	to	May 1973
SF	(ER)	May 1973	to	2001

The depot had 281 different vehicles allocated to it of types Class 104, Class 105, Class 109, Class 111, Class 114, Class 115, Class 116, Class 125, Derby Lightweight, Met-Camm Lightweight, W&M Railbus.

Communications

The following documents relating to railcars at the depot are courtesy of Stan Hinbest:

23/2/61 Frequency of oil changes — E79074 had run over 31,000 miles without an oil change.
2/10/61 Braking of Rolls-Royce Diesel Trains — Experimental fitting of Ferodo brake blocks to 50999/59460/51165.
17/6/69 Allocations — one oddity is the centre car for Class 111 power cars is 51541/51551 is show as Class 108 DTCL 56210.
Undated vehicle list — possibly accompanied the above.
18/6/69 Reallocations — The transfer of a fourth Class 111 to the depot and a 125 to Finsbury Park.
27/10/70 Disposals — a list of withdrawn Met-Camm Lightweight vehicles for disposal.
12/1/72 Cannibalisation of Vehicles — 91 items found missing from a vehicle awaiting works attention, removed to keep the rest of the fleet in service.
Undated Christmas Story — a poem about having to take parts from Western DMUs to keep the fleet going.
28/4/80 Exams and new coolant (Metasilicate) applied to vehicles
7/8/81 Removal of components A list (to all ER DMU depots) noting what components could be removed from withdrawn vehicles.
7/4/83 53xxx and 54xxx renumbering dates.
3/8/83 Allocations.
20/1/84 Allocations.

Formations / Observations

David Underwood was a driver in the Railcar links at Stratford from January 1978 until March 1982, after being Orange Star / Blue Square DMU trained from November 1976. The following documents are not a comprehensive list but more a snap shot of the Stratford fleet taken from his work diaries.

David: "The numbers listed are mainly those on my turn for that day, as we had 8 shed turns each day around the clock when I was on one of these jobs then I tried to write down all units on shed.

1980 & 1981 show how fluid the unit formations were at Stratford trying to run services on three lines, North Woolwich – Camden Road including Stratford Low Level – Tottenham Hale which required 6 units, Romford – Upminster which required a single unit and Wickford – Southminster which required 4 units which increased to 5 units plus overnight and weekend engineering replacement services for overhead line conversion work (6.25Kv to 25Kv) initially on Liverpool Street – Southend Victoria/Chelmsford lines, then Liverpool Street – Chingford/Enfield/Hertford East and Bishops Stortford, all with a relatively small fleet of ageing 104/105 & 116 units.

After 1982 I still got booked on Railcar turns as and when, in 1983 I started to cover the running foremans job and got a permanent position in 1985 until the post was withdrawn in early 1988 I moved from Stratford to Dagenham Dock as a freight supervisor so had no further involvement with DMU’s except for a couple of dates in 1989. In these latter years the listing reduces but I was able to record a lot of the foreign units that visited Stratford DRS for repair or tyre turning."

Download the PDF files: 1977, 1978, 1979, 1980, 1981, 1982, 1983, 1984, 1985, 1986, 1987/9.