Vehicle 50415

Class 109

Builder: Wickham
Layout: Low Density
Length: 57ft
Coupling Code: Blue Square
Coupling Type: Screw
Gangway Type: LMS
Engines: Leyland 150hp
Transmission: Mechanical
Lot Number: 30288
Diagram: 606

Allocations

Notes

28-30 Jun-57 - E50415 / incomplete Wickham trailer / W79083 / W79471 exhibited at the Modern Railway Travel exhibition at Battersea Wharf.

Disposal

Sep-61 - Sold back to Wickham who then sold it to the Trinidad Government Railway

Some sample formations the vehicle has been noted in:

Images:

June 1957

A brand new E50415 outside the works at Wickhams in Ware in June 1957. It is displaying the manufacturer's name on the destination blind. Wickham.

circa June 1957

A Wickham image (negative W/262) showing the interior of DMBS E50415 in the yard at their works, circa June 1957. Wickham.

circa June 1957

A Wickham image (negative W/274) showing DMBS E50415 circa June 1957. This was a matted version of another print that was widely distributed of the vehicle outside the company works. Wickham.

27th June 1957

Wickham built DMBS E50415 is seen on display in front of the banana ripening store at Battersea Wharf on 27 June 1957. It was part of the Modern Railway Travel Exhibition which opened the following day. Behind is the framework of a Wickham trailer, to the right the sign for exhibit 20 notes is as an Inter City Diesel Power Coach, designed and built by British Railways, which was W79083. On the solebar are a paint date of 11-5-56 and a Varnish date of 14-5-56. Stuart Mackay Collection.

The vehicle is mentioned in the following images:

Date: 26th November 1959

A Wickham DMU with E56170 and presumably E50415 in Cambridge station on 26 November 1959. The two vehicles would be exported to Trinidad a couple of years later. Stuart Mackay Collection.

Date: 22nd February 1986

Class 109 Trinidad Wickham Port of Spain 22 February 1986. In the early '80s I worked as a Property Manager for British Airways and was sent to all sorts of exotic places. On a visit to Trinidad I came across these two Wickham half coach front ends welded back to back which had been used as a café in one of the outer suburbs of the capital Port of Spain. Along with some others dumped behind the old railway station downtown I reckon at that time there were enough parts surviving from all four coaches E50415, 50419 and E56170, 56174 exported in late 1961 but I am unable to say which ones were which and they almost certainly won't exist now. A letter from me along with this picture was published in Rail Magazine in issue 337, August 12-25 1998. Alistair Ness.