The Class 110
diesel multiple unit
A diesel multiple unit or DMU is a multiple-unit train powered by on-board diesel engines. A DMU requires no separate locomotive, as the engines are incorporated into one or more of the carriages. Diesel-powered single-unit railcars are also ...
s were built by the
Birmingham Railway Carriage and Wagon Company
The Birmingham Railway Carriage and Wagon Company (BRC&W) was a railway locomotive and carriage builder, founded in Birmingham, England and, for most of its existence, located at nearby Smethwick, with the factory divided by the boundary be ...
in conjunction with the
Drewry Car Co.
The Drewry Car Co was a railway locomotive and railcar manufacturer and sales organisation from 1906 to 1984. At the start and the end of its life it built its own products, for the rest of the time it sold vehicles manufactured by sub-contract ...
to operate services on the former
Lancashire and Yorkshire
Lancashire ( , ; abbreviated Lancs) is the name of a Historic counties of England, historic county, Ceremonial County, ceremonial county, and non-metropolitan county in North West England. The boundaries of these three areas differ significa ...
main line. They originally entered service uniquely in this region, which earned them the name of the
'Calder Valley' sets. They were an updated version of the
Class 104, with more powerful engines, a revised cab design and raised bodyside window frames.
Description
The fact that they were primarily intended for services on the arduous Calder Valley route meant that Class 110 needed more power than other first generation DMUs, so they were fitted with
Rolls-Royce C6NFLH engines, and when delivered they had the highest hp/ton of any of the first generation
DMUs
A diesel multiple unit or DMU is a multiple-unit train powered by on-board diesel engines. A DMU requires no separate locomotive, as the engines are incorporated into one or more of the carriages. Diesel-powered single-unit railcars are also ...
, including the
lightweights. With a set weighing 87½ tons (tare), this gave a power-to-weight ratio of 8.3
hp /
ton
Ton is the name of any one of several units of measure. It has a long history and has acquired several meanings and uses.
Mainly it describes units of weight. Confusion can arise because ''ton'' can mean
* the long ton, which is 2,240 pounds
...
, which was appreciably higher than any other DMU in use at the time using normally aspirated engines.
Performance tests included a standing start against a ruling gradient of 1 in 261 and a set in tare condition achieved a speed of in 45 seconds, in 2 minutes 4 seconds, and in 4 minutes 6 seconds. From a standing start on a 1 in 45 gradient a speed of in third gear was reached in 42 seconds. Each set had 24 first class and 159 second class seats.
Timeline
The first twenty sets, for the
NER NER may refer to:
* New European Recordings, a record label
* ISO 3166-1 three letter code for Niger
* Named entity recognition, a text processing task that identifies certain words as belonging to one class or another
* Northeast Regional, an Amt ...
, were ordered in March 1959 and were allocated to
Bradford Hammerton Street depot. The second batch were allocated to the
LMR in January 1961, based at
Newton Heath
Newton Heath is an area of Manchester, England, north-east of Manchester city centre and with a population of 9,883.
Historically part of Lancashire, Newton was formerly a farming area, but adopted the factory system following the Industrial Re ...
in
Manchester
Manchester () is a city in Greater Manchester, England. It had a population of 552,000 in 2021. It is bordered by the Cheshire Plain to the south, the Pennines to the north and east, and the neighbouring city of Salford to the west. The t ...
. Deliveries of the two batches was concurrent, starting in 1961, and these were the penultimate class of first generation sets to be built.
All sets were concentrated at Hammerton Street by 1976.
Refurbishment of the class took place in 1979 - 1980, with fluorescent lighting, new seat covers, new internal panelling and mechanical modifications to reduce the occurrence of the fires in the exhaust system which were common on many classes of first generation DMU.
During refurbishment the class was repainted, first in the white livery with a blue stripe below the windows that was standard for refurbished DMUs and later in the standard British Rail blue and Grey livery. All sets that were turned out in the white livery were later repainted in blue and Grey.
The TSLs were removed from most sets and scrapped in 1982 to reduce maintenance costs and to allow a higher performance for an accelerated timetable on the Calder Valley line. At 11.2 hp/ton these sets now had by far the highest power/weight ratio of any first generation DMU, but with a significantly reduced capacity of just 111 seats.
At the same time all First Class seats were declassified to Second although the seats were not replaced.
The reduced capacity caused a problem with the upturn in traffic of the mid 1980s and some sets were supplemented in 1984–85 with centre cars from withdrawn
Class 111 units.
Bradford Hammerton Street depot closed in 1984, and all remaining Class 110 units were transferred to Neville Hill in Leeds.
The small fleet size together with maintenance costs of the non-standard Rolls-Royce engines ensured their early withdrawal. The engines were mounted with cylinder heads facing inwards, unlike all other DMU classes, and this required specialised facilities for engine removal which were only available at their home depot. Class 150/2 'Sprinters' were introduced on the Calder Valley route in 1987.
Most displaced units continued in traffic until October 1989, but were no longer common in the Calder Valley.
Orders
Preservation
Five vehicles are preserved:
*
Lakeside & Haverthwaite Railway
The Lakeside and Haverthwaite Railway (L&HR) is a heritage railway in Cumbria, England.
Location
The L&HR runs from Haverthwaite at the southern end of the line via Newby Bridge to Lakeside at the southern end of Windermere. Some services are ...
two-car set (52071 & 52077)
*
East Lancashire Railway
East Lancashire Railway is a heritage railway line in North West England which runs between Heywood, Greater Manchester and Rawtenstall in Lancashire. There are intermediate stations at Bury Bolton Street railway station, Bury Bolton Street, ...
three-car set (51813 & 51842)
Model railways
In 1982
Hornby Railways
Hornby Railways is a British rail transport modelling, model railways manufacturing company. Its roots date back to 1901 in Liverpool, when founder Frank Hornby received a patent for his Meccano construction toy. The first clockwork train was pr ...
launched its first version of the BR Class 110 in
OO gauge
OO gauge or OO scale (also, 00 gauge and 00 scale) is the most popular standard-gauge model railway standard in the United Kingdom, outside of which it is virtually unknown. OO gauge is one of several 4 mm-scale standards (4 mm to 1 foot, ...
.
References
*Motive Power Recognition: 3 DMUs. Colin J. Marsden
*British Railway Pictorial: First Generation DMUs. Kevin Robertson
*British Rail Fleet Survey 8: Diesel Multiple Units- The First Generation. Brian Haresnape
*A Pictorial Record of British Railways Diesel Multiple Units. Brian Golding
External links
History of the Class 110s
{{British Rail DMU
110
110 may refer to:
*110 (number), natural number
*AD 110, a year
*110 BC, a year
*110 film, a cartridge-based film format used in still photography
*110 (MBTA bus), Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority bus route
*110 (song), 2019 song by Capi ...
BRCW multiple units
Train-related introductions in 1961