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

Exterior variations in new vehicles

With such a large production run over the years there were some changes made. All the changes are shown in a table, after an explanation.

Cab front

As delivered there were three different types of cab fronts.

One - four marker lights

Initially vehicles were built with four marker lamps on the cab front, three lower and one on top, corresponding to the lamp codes then in use.

Vehicles with this style were batches 2a to 2c which were all delivered to the NER as 4-car sets (2a and 2c) and power twins (2b).

Two - two marker lights and top mounting plate

Part way through production it was decided to introduce a two-character train describer, located below the centre cab window of driving cars. This resulted in the two centre marker lights being dispensed with while the two lower outer marker lights were retained.

The first vehicles to have this change were twelve power trailer sets for the North Eastern Region, 50198-209 (lot 30259) and 56050-61 (lot 30260) - order 2e. The construction of the vehicles had passed the stage of adding the mounting plates to the cab front for the top lamp when the change was requested, and these were left in place but blanked over.

Three - two marker lights

From order 2f (commencing with vehicles E50210 / E56062) delivered in May 1957 the modification to two marker lights and a two-character route indicator was effected without any sign of a top lamp.

The table below shows "4" for four lamps or "2" for two lamps and a two-character train describer.

Vacuum Pipes

A variation which aids recognition was that the earlier produced vehicles were equipped with a much longer vacuum pipe, rising to the top of the buffer beam.

This was changed in February 1959 (order 4) when the first Leyland engined vehicle E51425 was produced with shorter pipes mounted at coupling hook level, all driving cars built after this date carried these shorter pipes. These are shown in the table as "L" for long and "S" for short (!).

After delivery a third variation was introduced when the LMR modified their vehicles to a one up / one down arrangement.

Engines

All engines were B.U.T. (British United Traction) 150hp engines. There were two types of these engines: one supplied by AEC (the 220 model) fitted to batches two and three; and one supplied by Leyland (the 680 model) fitted to batches four and five.

In the table below the AEC engined vehicles are shown as "A" and Leyland ones "L".

Guard's van

On all DMBS vehicles, on the non-drivers side of the vehicle (number two side), the inward opening door was always on the left side, to the rear of the vehicle.

Batch two

On the drivers (number one) side of the DMBS, batch two vehicles also had inward opening door on the left side (to the front of the vehicle).

In the table below this is represented by "L" since both sides are on the left.

Batches three to five

On the drivers (number one) side of the DMBS the inward opening door was moved to the right hand side.

Since these doors were now "handed" (right on this side and left on the other) they are represented in the table below by an "H".

There was also changes to the interior of the van from batch four. The doorway through the partition from the passenger saloon to the guard's van was moved from the centre of the wall and repositioned to the second man's side. This enabled a security cage to be installed within the van leaving a passenger walkway along one side. The cage contained a sliding gate on the walkway side opposite the bodyside loading doors. On the table these are represented by "O" - open/original or "C" - caged/changed.

Table of Variations