Single DMU

[class37418stag]

Hello everyone 

 

please excuse my English 

 

old style modern single DMU of class 121 & 122 have no toilet ? 

 

New style moden single DMU of class 153 (former class 155) have toilet ?

 

Am I right ?

[fiftyfour fiftyfour]

In a word, yes. The old 121/122 were really only ever intended for short branch lines whereas the 153's can run some pretty long distances.

I recall Class 117/118 had the toilet in the centre car, all fine until they took the centre cars out- and didn't the Tysley four cars have no toliet at all?

[keefer]

And if course the 117/118s and 4-car 127s were non-gangwayed so if you thought you might need the toilet en-route you had to choose to sit in the correct coach!

(The 117s eventually gained gangways but the 127s never did)

[The Johnster]

The 121/122 single units were what were called 'high density' stock; 1st generation dmus were divided into 'low density' (101, 104, 108, 110 etc), 'high density' (115/6/7/8/21/22) 'cross country' (119, 120) and 'Inter city' (123, 126).  High density stock had doors to each seating bay and no ventilators to the windows, designed for suburban commuter work.  They were originally built without gangways but acquired these on some routes when stations became unstaffed and guards sold tickets on the trains, after which most, but not all, were gangwayed within the sets.  Of the high density sets, including the 25kv emus based on the same seating layout, only 117 and 118 had toilets for working longer distance services out of Paddington to Oxford or Newbury on the WR, and before they were gangwayed within sets the toilet, in the centre of the trailer car dividing first and second class, could only be accessed from the trailer car.

 

 

 

The '2nd Generation' dmus, 142/3, 150/2/3/5/6/8 all have toilets and were gangwayed within sets from new, and the 152 upwards are capable of being gangwayed between sets.

[jointline]

Yes, the 117's had the toilet in the middle coach, and it was a welcome change when they were introduced, as before that the compartment stock, eg on the Western Region services out of Paddington,  had no toilets at all. 

 

But has been mentioned,  you had to make sure to sit in the centre car of the three car set, as there were no gangways originally.  They came in quite soon after though.

 

121s/122s often replaced GWR  single unit railcars or auto-trains, none of which ever had toilets,  so no change there.

[EddieK]

On 10/05/2020 at 20:10, fiftyfour fiftyfour said:

In a word, yes. The old 121/122 were really only ever intended for short branch lines whereas the 153's can run some pretty long distances.

I recall Class 117/118 had the toilet in the centre car, all fine until they took the centre cars out- and didn't the Tysley four cars have no toliet at all?

In the mid 1980s, a number of Tyseley Class 116 triple sets gained Class 127 TSL cars (with toilets) in place of their non toilet Class 116 centre cars. Subsequently these sets had gangways fitted. Some gangwayed Class 116 sets at Tyseley gained Class 101 centre cars, but obviously this reduced seating capacity.

The four car sets at Tyseley formed from 1987 onwards contained one vehicle fitted with toilets - this was always a Class 127 TSL. There were surplus Class 115 TCLs around at that time, but I suspect that they were not used as toilet provision on account of having half a coach of First Class seats (reduced capacity) also the relative difficulty in putting gangways through the First Class end wall.

[The Johnster]

As to toilets, I was told back in the 70s while working as a guard at Canton that they had to be provided on any train with a booked journey time of 2 hours or more from the starting station to the destination station, and if this could not be done a 10 minute stop at an intermediate station had to be incorporated into the timetable.  It was for this reason that the rather local in nature and Pannier hauled Newport-Brecon and Neath-Brecon services had gangwayed stock with toilets.  I took this as gospel; it was a very old hand and experienced passenger guard who told me it, but when I mentioned it here some time ago Stationmaster Mike corrected me as to there never having been an actual rule about this, though it may have been standard GW/WR practice.  Other railways had non-gangwayed coaches with toilets dividing half-saloons, usually composites, but I cannot recall any such provision on the WR.  I believe the GW had some like this back in Dean's day, but they had all gone long before the introduction of the 117/8s.

Edited May 14, 2020 by The Johnster

[fiftyfour fiftyfour]

That got reduced to 60 mins across the board in latter years, it prevented Class 313's from doing a planned Watford to Gatwick service some time ago which had to be put on hold until some 319's could be found.