DMU Travels & Headcodes part 1 - 1967-1970

By Alan N Walker

You all know the saying regarding acorns and oaks; on 24 October 1966, following the enlighted example of a couple of friends at secondary school in Newcastle, an interesting but standard bus season ticket school journey was fully recorded. This conveniently just missed my final BR steam journey during family holiday in Cumberland, but did permit coverage of another interest - DMUs - where I loved sitting behind the driver in the days before blinds were left down all day.

In spite of this, multiple units received a hesitant start with North Tyneside electric E29125E on 2G77 at 18:14 on 4 November but then lapsed into a few months just as EMU and DMU and even times missing randomly on certain journeys including loco-hauled. Fortunately this weakness didn't last for long and the Travel Diary in different notebook and paper formats has continued to the present day. Consistency was probably kick-started by three LMR 7-day railrover tickets with friends. These thick cards were called LMR Area 2 Runabout Tickets; in 1968 they covered Longtown and Annan to Wigan, Southport, Formby, Lake Windermere Steamers and Skipton via Gargrave without time restrictions and were remarkable value at £2. This was particularly appreciated bearing in mind the single fare from home in Whitley Bay to Carlisle was 11s 8d (68p) without through booking and my home area of North East England then had no regional rover at all. It's as if the beauty of Lindisfarne, Durham, Hadrian's Wall, Northumberland, North York Moors, Whitby via DMU could be cast aside in favour of single, return and day return fares only for the market of several million inhabitants and many visitors.

Part 1 takes us to the end of schooldays and the start of adulthood. Somehow along the way "O" and "A" levels were gained but your travel-hungry teen had to work in many school holidays and the DMUs reflect that, along with evening vocational skills training encouraged by two female companions. Two own Lambrettas plus cars of friends started to make a impact but not much, but express coach services and United coach excursions ended up inevitable for teenager 14-18 with BR expensive and no railcards possible. By the way, I use my middle initial to avoid confusion with a namesake Flickr photographer who amazingly stood in near-identical position at a few stations. Returning to railcars, for a fascinating discovery right at the end of the period see my note against very tentative 1N96 code, where a Class 101 4-car beats anything the WR and LMR could achieve and not matched on regular service until the later years of Class 185s.

Headcodes are now familiar as Train Reporting Numbers thanks to opentraintimes.com and other websites plus most BR traction 1960-75 or so and loco-hauled train books of the previous century. My diary headcodes survived as very concise route guides for local and regional services, however amazingly they've hardly featured within DMU or train service web documentation except in general terms. This is probably because only very late DMU production gained the 4-character headcodes which had become essential for modern power signalling and station staff outside of the Southern Region. My vital guide then and now is "British Rail Headcodes" 5th edition published by Ian Allan in February 1968, but that's just a starting point with dozens of undated handwritten amendments and knowledge of ER Divisional and District changes necessary. Accordingly exact detail is incomplete and any improvements or corrections are welcome, along with more complete details of DMU full journeys for the quoted workings.

The latter have needed many timetable sources and even use random poor photos in eBay BR Arrivals and Departure (Station Working) books amongst Working Timetables (WTTs) which helpfully add the headcodes also. Several of my public timetables have been given away, hence any help is much appreciated with many thanks in advance. Wide total upheaval reigned around service closure times, even including information missing for Blackpool thanks to the closure of Central and diversion of many trains from South station.

The DMU lines that got away? In this period Skipton to Colne and the Mablethorpe branch, though East Lincolnshire via Class 114 just manages to feature in time along with several shorter services and branches. Thanks to my late father Harold Walker I hope to add a snippet of Class 105 ID on the Fraserburgh-St Combs branch. But sadly nothing on Darlington-Penrith DMU via "Dayline Diesel" ticket written about enthusiastically for my primary school teacher! Nor 101s to Newbiggin-by-the-Sea killed by Beeching in 1964 using a survey taken in the school holidays so that schools traffic could be omitted. This article and information is dedicated to my father and formal objector, his half-century anniversary this month almost coincides with the Northumberland Line reopening which would have made him very happy. Sadly no 101s though!

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