The History of First Generation DMUs

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The Railcar website provides information on the British Railways first generation DMUs (a.k.a. diesel multiple units / railcars) introduced in the 1950s.

The content of this website

The six key sections of the website are:

• Types - looks at each type of DMU in detail
• Topics - features articles on different aspects of the vehicles and personal recollections
• Technology - describes the technical details of how they work
• Data - various lists of numerical details
• Images - galleries featuring DMUs
• In Print - details the books and other printed materials made available over the years that have relevance

Details of railcars in preservation can be found on The Railcar Association website.

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Date on DMUs

Vehicle / Set Data

To view details of a particular vehicle or set enter the number below:

Vehicle:

       

Set No:

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DMU Images Wanted!

Do you have photos of First Generation DMUs? The more images we have the better we can tell the DMU story and make it more useful to visitors. Images can be loaded directly onto the site - just register as a user and upload! Alternatively if you have images on flickr or another website I can do the uploads for you - just let me know.

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Scope

This website contains details about the First Generation DMUs. This includes the 4-wheel diesel railbuses, ACV / BUT railcars, the Battery Multiple Unit (BMU) and Blue Pullmans. It covers the period from their introduction to British Railways in the 1950s till their withdrawal and disposal from main-line use, but NOT preservation.

Because of the vast amount of data that this covers and the amount of information I have still to process I cannot include the DEMUs introduced on the Southern Region in the same era, nor Second Generation or later types.

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Updates

June 7th

A new page has been added to the Class 104 section looking at their time on the North Eastern Region.

May 31st

Some more operation/timetable pages have been started: Norwich - Dereham - Wells; Machynlleth - Pwllheli; Whitby - Malton; Kilmarnock - Ayr; and Reading - Gatwick Airport.

May 24th

Some more fault finding documents have been added: Eastern Region, 1968 (3mb PDF); Scottish Region sheets from 1973 (0.6mb PDF) and circa late 1970s (0.6mb PDF); from unknown origins are a double-sided sheet from the 1980s (0.5mb PDF), and a sheet dealing with blown 6 & 7 fuses.

April 26th

Added is a BR booklet dated 1959 listing all the brakework items along with part and drawing numbers, for Craven built diesel railcars. Download PDF (11mb pdf).

April 19th

Some more operation/timetable pages have been started: Ely - March - Peterborough; Manchester - Llandudno; Leeds - Micklefield; Elgin - Keith Junction and Cairnie Junction; and Birmingham - Great Malvern.

April 12th

Three more fault finding booklets have been added: Eastern Region, 1967 (3mb PDF), Scottish Region, 1967 (1.1mb PDF), and Western Region, 1967 (4.9mb PDF).