Class 101 Met-Camm 2,3 & 4-car DMUs

Orders

339 vehicles

The first Class 101 cars were ordered early in 1955 before any of the first Met-Camm 79xxx series units had been received.

The 79xxx sets were all delivered by July 1956 when Met-Camm started work on this second DMU order. The first units were 4-car sets for service between Newcastle and Carlisle, the last vehicle of these being the 100th Met-Camm vehicle had built for British Railways. Met-Camm was proud of the orders it was receiving and began placing adverts in the trade press for every 100th vehicle milestone.

The Saltley production line at this time was producing up to four vehicles a week. The order for the 339 vehicles was expected to be completed in the early summer of 1958. The 200th car was delivered in May 1957.

160 vehicles

On May 7th 1957 the BTC placed it's third order with Met-Camm for a further eighty motor cars and eighty driving trailer cars with delivery expected by the end of 1958.

The 250th car was completed on 26th July 1957 (the publicity picture which accompanied the press release showed two power/trailer sets, including E56071 with Newcastle on the blind, but didn't specify what vehicle the 250th was!)

168 vehicles

On the 5th May '58 the BTC ordered a further 168 cars. The order comprised forty-six 3-car sets (DMBS/TC/DMC), twenty for the NER and twenty-six for the ScR. The remaining 30 cars were Class 111s.

In the last week of September 1958 Met-Camm completed its 500th vehicle. As deliveries had started in Dec 1955 with the first of the 79xxx vehicle, it had since then produced an average of three cars a week. At the time, the vehicles could be seen operating as 2-car units on the ER, 2 & 3-car sets on the LMR, 2, 3 & 4-car sets on the NER, and in 2-car sets on the ScR.

21 vehicles

On the 9th March '59 the BTC placed its final first generation DMU order with Met-Camm, seven 3-car sets for the ScR.

The 700th car was delivered in September 1959.

Due to the huge number of vehicles and the corresponding variations and operations I have split the vehicles up into sections, corresponding to the orders, and these batch codes are used throughout the rest of these pages. The codes can be found on the next page.