British Rail Railbuses
| British Rail Railbuses | |
|---|---|
Railbus no. 79964 at York Railfest exhibition on 3 June 2004. This vehicle is preserved on the Keighley and Worth Valley Railway.
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| In service |
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| Capacity | 46–56 seats |
| Operator(s) | British Rail |
British Rail produced a variety of railbuses, both as a means of acquiring new rolling stock cheaply, and to provide economical services on lightly-used lines.
Railbuses are a very lightweight type of railcar designed specifically for passenger transport on little-used railway lines. As the name suggests, they share many aspects of their construction with a bus, usually having a bus body, or a modified bus body, and having four wheels on a fixed wheelbase, instead of on bogies. Some, but not all, of the units have been equipped for operation as diesel multiple units.
In the late 1950s, British Rail tested a series of small railbuses, produced by a variety of manufacturers, for about £12,500 each (£261,000 at 2014 prices). These proved to be very economical (on test the Wickham bus was about 9 mpg‑imp (0.31 L/km)), but also somewhat unreliable. The lines they worked on were mainly closed during the Beeching Cuts and, being non-standard, they were all withdrawn in the mid-1960s, before being allocated TOPS classifications.
In addition to these railbuses, BR ordered three for departmental (non-revenue earning) service. The full list of passenger and departmental units is set out below.
British Rail returned to the idea of railbuses from the mid-1970s, and a prototype four wheel vehicle was developed jointly by British Leyland and the British Rail Research Division. A number of single and two-car railbuses were built and tested, in co-operation with Leyland (hence the generic term for these vehicles as LEV (Leyland Experimental Vehicle) railbuses). The first three single car prototypes were essentially Leyland National bus bodies mounted on a modified HSFV1 four wheeled rail chassis. The prototype two-car railbus was allocated Class 140 and is dealt with on that page, but the prototype single car railbuses were not classified and are set out in the table below:
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