CREATE A DEMU WITH A DIFFERENCE

The railway has long had a reputation for getting the maximum mileage out of existing rolling stock. GRAEME ELGAR does his own bit of recycling to create an unusual Southern Region three-car multiple unit.

The Southern Region had a well-earned reputation for finding new uses for rolling stock made redundant elsewhere. Here’s how I took a leaf out of its book… Six-car Hastings line DEMUS were disbanded and shuffled to form three-car DEMUS on the Tonbridgereading line in 1964. Spare ‘2-EPB’ EMU Driver Trailer Second (DTS) cars were included to make up the numbers, and the result was the ‘3-R’ or ‘Tadpole’ DEMU. As the EX-‘2-EPB’ vehicles were built to the standard BR Mk 1 profile, the assembled ‘3-R’ units looked rather ungainly, with a mix of body widths. When the ‘3-R’ units were displaced in 1979, the former ‘2-EPB’ DTS cars were put to yet another use. This time they were used to turn four ‘2-H’ DEMUS into three-car sets. Marshalled in the centre of the unit, the former cab ends were stripped of driving equipment and coupled against the inner end of the ‘2-H’ Driving Trailer car. The redundant yellow warning panel of the centre car was painted blue. The four new three-car units were numbered 1401-1404. Originally classified ‘3-T’, they became Class 204 under TOPS and were withdrawn in 1987. I’d been after one of Kernow Model Rail Centre’s exclusive Bachmannmade ‘2-H’ DEMUS for ages. I have strong memories of these two-car Class 205s in the drab, plain BR blue livery of the 1970s; they were certainly austere, no-frills multiple units! It occurred to me that with a small amount of work, it would be possible to create a three-car Class 204 using a Bachmann ‘2-EPB’ DTS car.

POWER POSER

The two-car Kernow ‘Thumper’ follows Bachmann’s standard arrangement of current collection. All 16 wheels transmit power to the motor and lighting circuits in the powered car, by means of conductive couplings installed between the vehicles. With only standard plug-in NEM coupling sockets provided at the outer ends, inserting an extra car with a driving cab raised the issue of a lack of conductivity between the trailer and power car. I could either run the unit without lights or add an extra DCC decoder purely to illuminate the trailer cars. Or I could make my own electrical connections, using spare Bachmann components from a ‘4-CEP’ unit. My first attempt failed - a lack of lateral movement in the coupling pockets caused derailments. However, I eventually rigged up a simple pivoting system that proved successful.