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Three Merseyrails from the mid 1970's

 

post-6977-0-13697000-1500456546.jpg

 

A class 502 heading for Southport at Bootle Jct.

 

post-6977-0-38498400-1500456558.jpg

 

Class 502 for Liverpool at Bootle Jct., the lines to the left lead down to Atlantic Dock Jct., and Edge Hill.

 

post-6977-0-67981900-1500456570.jpg

 

Class 503 passing Birkenhead North No 2

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The tale of two units...

 

Last November 377442 suffered a fire at Eastbourne. The net result was that MOSL 78842 was badly damaged (likely as not written off, but there was a bit of an argument on Railforums as to its actual state!) and removed from the unit. With 377442 now being 3-carriages, Southern took the pragmatic step of reclassifying it as a 377/3. I saw it first back in May when it passed my train at South Croydon, and I had to double-take. Not sure if it will ever run as a 377/4 again, but if nothing else, it adds to the long list of small anomalies in the history of Southern electric.

 

Annoyingly, it was the only 377/4 I did not manage to get a decent photograph of (typical!). Here is my one and only, with it leaving Victoria on 7th January 2015. The damaged carriage is the first intermediate from the camera - the one without the pantograph well.

 

16197903196_0a0c8a7db3_k.jpg377442 by Claude_Dreyfus, on Flickr

 

I finally managed to catch it in its 377/3 guise yesterday (21st July) - ironically I only got this picture as I was delayed due to a reported fire on my train at Norwood junction. Not a great picture, as taken on my phone.

 

36081689875_ffcac45952_k.jpg377342 by Claude_Dreyfus, on Flickr

 

Here it is at East Croydon, having worked the truncated 17:41 London Bridge - Littlehampton (chopped back to East Croydon due to the industrial action).

Edited by Claude_Dreyfus
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Great shot of trains in the environs of Victoria Claude.  I was going to say '377 heaven', but there seems to be an interloper just visible mid-picture, below the gantry!

 

Is that damaged 377 really 377 442?!

 

All the best,

 

Colin

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Great shot of trains in the environs of Victoria Claude.  I was going to say '377 heaven', but there seems to be an interloper just visible mid-picture, below the gantry!

 

 

 

Indeed - said interloper features more prominently earlier in the thread...

 

http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/121466-third-rail-emu-photos/page-1&do=findComment&comment=2672294

 

 

Is that damaged 377 really 377 442?!

 

 

 

The errant carriage made the international news in its own right with this tweet...

 

https://twitter.com/lukejalexander/status/811670608463482881

 

There is a certain irony that Southern rid itself of all things 442 in the space of a coupe of months...

Edited by Claude_Dreyfus
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The word I have heard was initially the carriage was written off but then it was sent up by road (causing the now legendary traffic jam in the process!) for assessment.  My theory is that it will return one day but that it will be a new frame with a few salvaged bits of 78842 fitted to it plus its original number.

 

There have been a couple of 377 oddballs before, 377165 was created from three car 377318 with the MOSL from 377162 after it and 377454 were bashed by an errant 455.  377454 had its damaged driving car swapped for the undamaged one from 377162 which also saw use on one end of 377105 for a while as well.  There was another one as well where a PTSOL car was temporarily inserted into possibly 377439 for one day only to test the possibility of a five car 377 a few years before the 377/6 came along.

Edited by John M Upton
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I can't see how the coach from 377442 can be that badly damaged as for it to be written off, other than internal fittings being a bit burnt. Remember after the fire the complete 4 car unit was hauled from Eastbourne to Selhurst top and tail between the two ROG 37s (in the middle of the day at reasonable speed, few videos of it on YouTube) surely it would have been examined at Eastbourne and passed fit prior to this move. If considered unfit for example with signs of the structure being compromised then it would have been removed from the set on site at Eastbourne and taken by road from there with the remaining 3 cars then being formed up and probably taken away by the 37s

 

And conveniently the coach in question is the one that the 377/3s don't have allowing them to use the remaining 3 cars as a serviceable unit.

 

Dale

Edited by dale159
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By all accounts the damage internally was significant.

 

http://www.railforums.co.uk/showpost.php?p=2791429&postcount=2

 

It did a lot of damage to the wiring (there was a suggestion it was linked to the hand dryer wiring - although apparently the toilet cubicle itself was not badly damaged), as well as fittings etc. That'll be a job for the insurers to establish whether or not it is repaired/replaced.

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By all accounts the damage internally was significant.

 

http://www.railforums.co.uk/showpost.php?p=2791429&postcount=2

 

It did a lot of damage to the wiring (there was a suggestion it was linked to the hand dryer wiring - although apparently the toilet cubicle itself was not badly damaged), as well as fittings etc. That'll be a job for the insurers to establish whether or not it is repaired/replaced.

Hi Claude,

 

Perhaps like many contemporary items manufactured today, the damaged carriage from unit 377 (4)42 was probably not designed to be repairable - are there any spare parts for these units anyway?!  Back in the days of BR(S), a coach with similar damage would no doubt have been cobbled back together somehow! 

 

Colin

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One option could be to build a new coach frame on the 387 production line which is still running to 377 technical specification (the 377/6 and 377/7 ones are effectively 387's with the earlier electrical gubbins) although you could, in the tradition of the Southern Region, wind up with an odd coach in a unit with different windows.

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During what would now be considered the early days of privatisation, NSE and Stagecoach colours mingle on a rather damp May day in 1998 at Waterloo (click on the pic to see more detail).

 

post-4406-0-49758800-1500913136_thumb.jpg

Edited by bingley hall
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Bognor Regis station concourse is currently being extensively rebuilt (at the height of the Summer season for truly excellent timing!!) and those old gates are actually being reinstated having sat in a corner since they were taken out when the ticket barriers went in a few years ago.  That circular groove worn in the surface is still there.

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The word I have heard was initially the carriage was written off but then it was sent up by road (causing the now legendary traffic jam in the process!) for assessment.  My theory is that it will return one day but that it will be a new frame with a few salvaged bits of 78842 fitted to it plus its original number.

 

 

There was a class 156 DMU written off a few years ago when it got stranded in flood water. However the owners of the scrapyard that bought it decided that the unit was still repairable (maybe shades of when big insurers 'write off' cars rather than pay the repair costs).

 

So thats what the yard did - and they have now become the smallest RoSCo in the country as 156478 is back working for ScotRail again!

 

http://www.railmagazine.com/news/fleet/2016/10/25/brodie-owned-dmu-enters-traffic-with-scotrail

 

http://www.railforums.co.uk/showthread.php?t=117706&page=21

Edited by phil-b259
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And this is 40 years ago at Bognor Regis.

 

attachicon.gifFile2257.jpg

Ah, the Southern Region as I remember it!  

 

Your picture is packed with atmosphere, from the corporate signage to the hand-written adverts for excursions to Windsor and Llandrindod Wells.  The 'All Stations to Brighton' sign evokes memeories of trips to Chichester to visit my garndparents in the late sixties, with return journeys on Sunday evenings along the East Coastway - or whatever it was then called, taking in such delights as Angmering, Southwick and Fishersgate (not neccessarily in that order).

 

Colin

Edited by Colin parks
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And this is 40 years ago at Bognor Regis.

 

attachicon.gifFile2257.jpg

 

Same view yesterday evening:

post-6910-0-50977500-1501574040.jpg

 

Also my office, the last train from Bognor last night tucked far away on the very distant Platform 4:

36296517055_703a63168c_b.jpgSouthern Class 313/2 313202 Bognor Regis 31/7/17 by John Upton, on Flickr

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