Class 150

NORTH WALES COAST RAILWAY: THE TRAINS

Rheilffordd arfordir Gogledd Cymru Trenau

Last update September 2008

Trains index | North Wales Coast Railway home page

Arriva Trains Wales Class 150 fleet

150 208   52208 57208
150 213   52213 57213
150 217   52217 57217
150 229 G 52239 57239
150 230   52230 57230
150 231   52231 57231
150 235   52235 57235
150 236   52236 57236
150 237   52237 57237
150 240   52240 57240
150 241   52241 57241
150 242   52242 57242
150 245 G 52245 57245
150 250   52250 57250
150 251   52251 57251
150 252   52252 57252
150 253   52253 57253
150 254   52254 57254
150 256   52256 57256
150 258   52258 57258
150 259   52259 57258
150 260   52260 57260
150 262   52262 57262
150 264   52264 57264
150 267   52267 57267
150 278 G 52278 57278 
150 279 G 52279 57279 
150 280 G 52280 57280 
150 281 G 52281 57281 
150 282   52282 57282
150 283   52283 57283
150 284   52284 57284
150 285   52285 57284


G = currently sub-leased
to First Great Western 
(2008)

Technical Specification | Historical Notes

A 2-car Class 150 diesel railcar set comprises two steel-bodied driving motor cars, each 19.74 metres long, built in 1986-87 by the York works of BREL to a design based on the Mk3 hauled coach bodyshell. One vehicle of each pair, the 52xxx vehicle, has a toilet compartment at its inner end.

The oldest series, Class 150/1, have no corridor connections in the cab ends, and hand-operated crew doors, whereas the later 150/2 series have corridor connections and powered doors for the crew. All Arriva Trains Wales (ATW) units are 150/2s.

ATW started life with just five units of the 150/2 type which came from the Cardiff Railway Company, whuch had refurbished them with 2 + 2 seating in place of the original cramped 3 + 2 type.

Since 2005, many more 150/2s have arrived at Cardiff depot, transferred from other companies These had old-style 3+2 seats when they arrived, but have also now been refurbished to the same standard as the others and repainted in Arriva standard livery. Arrival of these units has enabled the Wrexham - Bidston service, and the Conwy Valley service in summer, to be worked by 2-car 150s instead of the single-car 153s previously used. In 2008, six sets, in full Arriva Trains Wales livery, are 'temporarily' in use by First Great Western in the West of England, although officially part of the ATW fleet.

Each car has one Cummins NT855R5 diesel engine of 213 kW (285 HP) driving both axles of the bogie at the non-driving end through a Voith hydraulic transmission and Gmeinder final drives, identical to the drive equipment of Class 153 and 156. Maximum speed is 75 mph. Air suspension units are provided for each bogie, the three-step air-operated brakes have a variable load feature, and public address equipment is fitted.

Class 150 have BSI (Bergische Stahl Industrie) outer couplers, and can work in multiple with Classes 142, 150, 153 and 158.

There 85 150/3 units in total. Other users of the type are Northern Rail whose trains can be seen at Chester, First Great Western, and London Midland, who have split some of their 150/2s and used the vehicles as centre cars to make up Class 150/1 units to three-car.

Historical notes: By the early 1980s no new diesel railcars for local services had been built for British Rail in 20 years, and replacement was becoming matter of urgency. From 1983 onwards a series of 4-wheeled vehicles was built (Class 142) but these supposedly cheap trains soon showed their inadequacy. Two prototype diesel-electric trains (class 210) based on the Mk 3 coach were built, but these were thought too expensive. BREL and Metro-Cammell were asked in early 1983 to build prototypes diesel-hydraulic trains suitable for both local and long-distance services, and BREL produced two Class 150 sets based on the Class 455 electric trains then in quantity production for suburban services south of London. Metro-Cammell's version, the Class 151, was delayed into service for various reasons, with the result that rather than the intended comparative testing, 50 two-car Class 150s were ordered, and 37 of these were ready to take over all workings based at Derby Etches Park depot on 20 January 1986.

The production trains differed from the prototypes in having just two coaches per unit instead of three, a result of someone in Whitehall arbitrarily deciding that two new cars would be sufficient to replace three of the old ones. The two three-car prototype sets, 150 001 and 150 002, are still in traffic in 2008 with London Midland; their centre vehicles are the only Class 150 cars without driving cabs.

Built in 1987 on the Class 150 production line was the unique track-recording unit, 950 001, which is used by Network Rail for track-assessment duties, espcially on lines where locmotive-hauled trains are not allowed. It looks like a 150/1 with fewer doors and windows, and carries video camera and other equipment on the ends,

A second order for 85 two-car units, which became Class 150/2, was placed in 1986, and delivery began before the end of that year. Some of these second-wave units were first used to replace locomotive-hauled trains on the Trans-Pennine expresses, a duty for which their high-density seating layout was far from suitable; by the time they were moved to local services elsewhere a couple of years later, they already seemed travel-weary. The original seats, known as the 'Ashbourne' type, fell apart on a regular basis and had to be rebuilt, the floors rotted, and various other matters needed attention, although they did not suffer from the major problems found in some other units.