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Old May 13th 10, 08:13 PM posted to uk.railway,misc.transport.urban-transit,uk.transport.london
D7666 D7666 is offline
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First recorded activity at LondonBanter: Jul 2003
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Default May Modern Raiways, Map of London's Railways

It was not myself who asked the question upthread, although it was me
who propagated examples of LT and descendant running diesel trains; I
don't know if the original questioner would include ''crank'' workings
- but I would not.

I was aware of the Chesham bubble car and the Chesham 3H trains - but
was discounting them - service train or not, the units were only there
for crank purposes or heritage events, which to my way of seeing
things are artificial.

I am not aware of BR DMMU working vice Met.trains but there might
have; I suppose if they have so worked it is a valid answer. Likewise,
I think all the Met. widened lines etc diesel workings were always BR
trains but there might have been some dubious workings that were LT
hiring BR - but I can't think why on earth that would have happened.

I had not thought of the Sundays Liverpool Street - Ongar DMU but they
were LT etc : seem to me to be a good answer as I believe they were LT
trains operated by BR, rather than BR trains.

It is the Chesham branch I was thinking of - two cases - one has now
been posted - the ACV railcars in 1952
http://www.railcar.co.uk/hisOthers/ACVops.htm
I had not heard the ACVs went to Ongar - and that page does not report
this; that is not to say they did not, I'm just not aware of this.

But the one I thought of first - the one that set me answering in this
thread - was the use c.1983 of Hastings DEMU on the Chesham branch.
Not a railtour. Not a special event working. Not a crankex. Booked to
do it for genuine operating reasons.

When LT or whatever abbreviation they were that week hired BR test car
999550 it had 2 Hastings DEMU motor coaches as motive power. It toured
all parts of the LU network, where it fitted. When they did the
Chesham branch - which was in the day time - it ran as a normal
timetabled public service train, just from Chalfont to Chesham and
back. One trip only. Happened one time only, was never repeated. DMBSO
+999550+DMBSO with passengers in the in the normal places.

I was aware of it in advance happening, I had planned on doing it, and
was en route from Coventry where I lived at the time, to London, but
the 81 hauling the train failed north of Bletchley. Got pushed by the
following rain into Bletchley platforms, then dragged into Euston with
a single 25. Not only did I get a cab ride in the dead 81 out of this
(I was pretty well known to several Wolverhampton depot drivers at
that time) but the train was out of course working and we went via the
Up Empty Carriage Line - the one and only time I ever did that piece
of track. So I had a ''rat'' through the ''rat hole'' as it was
called.

The Up ECS line is the one that used to diverge left from the Up side
in the primrose Hill area swing round in tunnel under the entire
running line layout and emerge on the Down side. Closed a good while
back, I assume abandoned and lifted when they re-worked Euston under
PUG1 ?

Swings and roundabouts. I lost out on having the rare event of a DEMU
in service to Chesham, but got a spectacularly rare piece of track
with my fav. class at the time, a 25.

--
Nick