The cars worked services in Lincolnshire, Humberside and the East Midlands.

Set 50003/56003 was noted in service on the Upminster - Romford branch on the 12th Nov. '56.

At the start of 1957 50007/56007 were noted on the training course being done on the New Barnett - Harston line. 

When the ECML was closed on three consecutive Sats (from 13:30) to Mons (till 13:30) for the rebuilding of Muskham Viaduct in 1957, all through trains ran via Lincoln and a DMU shuttle service operated between Grantham and Newark. 50020/56021/50021 operated this on the Saturady of the final weekend, June 1st.

50000/56000

Testing of this set occured in mid-'57 and included runs between Manchester Victoria and Rochdale, including the 1 in 27 Werneth incline. The two cars, which weighed 83 tons tare were loaded with 11 tons of brake blocks to simulate a complement of 200 passengers. The train was stopped on the incline and restarted without slipping, reaching a balancing speed of 14mph. Another series of trials were done between Carlisle and Skipton, without the load of brake blocks, but on several trips a tail load of 57 tons was attached and on one trip a dynometer car was added as well. With the tail load of 57 tons the unit was repeatedly started from rest without slipping on the 1 in 100 gradients and reached a balancing speed of 31mph. It worked from Lincolm with the rest of the class.

Problems

In mid-1958 when Cravens cars were delivered to the Lincoln area they were found to be incompatable with the Class 114s, despite both being Blue Square. The reason given was that the Derby's had Leyland engines and the Cravens AEC, and there were minor variations in wiring. To avoid them being coupled the Class 114's received a diagonal cream stripe on their blue square. While no other information is available on this, it is assumed that as the 114s were the first blue square cars, certain ammendments were made from trial and error, and they would have been "updated" when re-engined.

1965

At this time 50000-13/24-7/9-49, paired with 56000-11/3/6/24-49 were allocated to 40A and worked the following services:

• Lincoln - Derby
• Lincoln - Sheffield Victoria
• Boston - Gainsborough then Doncaster or Sheffield Victoria
• Grantham - Doncaster
• Cleethorpes - Peterborough or Doncaster

50014-23, paired with 56012/4/5/7-23 were also allocated to 40A but loaned to Sheffield for local traffic, between maintenance periods. Formerly stabled at Darnhall, they were expected to be returned to Sheffield once Tinsley was opened. They worked:

• Sheffield Midland - Leeds City and Cudworth
• Sheffield Victoria - Hull and Cleethorpes
• Sheffield Victoria - Boston
• Sheffield Midland and Victoria - Nottingham