SR class 455- MU jumpers

[rodent279]

Reading with interest an old Rail Enthusiast, from June/July 1983, I found an interesting snippet in the Multiple Unit news section. It says that some class 455's were fitted with MU jumpers recovered from class 76 Woodhead electrics. Seems a little unlikely to me, but can anyone verify whether this is true?

[DY444]

Sounds very unlikely to me too.  I can't find the information at the moment but I have it in my head that the 76s had 36 way jumpers whereas the 455s have 42 way and perusing photos it looks to me that the design of the mu cable receptacles on the front of a 76 and 455 are different.

 

Philosophically it doesn't feel right either; the SR and Southern Railway have a long history of re-using stuff from old stock on new stock but re-using something trivial like jumper cables from another region's withdrawn locomotive class doesn't pass the sniff test to me.

 

There's also the elephant in the room which is the unfortunate tendency of misunderstanding and getting hold of the wrong end of the stick that those early RE issues in particular suffered from, especially in respect of technical matters.  Look at any of those early issues and you'll find examples of this so I'd treat anything vaguely technical published there at that time with caution.

[rodent279]

Here, for what it's worth, is the offending clip. Taken from "Readers Round-Up", p58 of what I *think* is the May/June 1983 edition. The front & back covers are missing, but the caption inside days it's 508036 at Wimbledon, at night. Make of it what you will, quite possibly it's just folklore, a bit like the "GC was built to Berne gauge" myth.

 

 

As an aside, and pertinent to this story, here's a photo from the excellent Leighton Logs Flickr site, showing class 455's 5830 & 5831 at Nuneaton on delivery, with a very appropriate 31296 at the sharp end-Brucie bonus points to anyone who gets why it's appropriate.

 

 

Edited October 5, 2021 by rodent279

[tiger]

1 hour ago, rodent279 said:

As an aside, and pertinent to this story, here's a photo from the excellent Leighton Logs Flickr site, showing class 455's 5830 & 5831 at Nuneaton on delivery, with a very appropriate 31296 at the sharp end-Brucie bonus points to anyone who gets why it's appropriate.

 

 

 

D5829 was renumbered to 31296 so the picture shows 5829, 5830 and 5831 consecutively. Spooky numerology!

 

Cheers, Tom.

[Wickham Green too]

Doesn't seem to be any logic to the barriers used : 5822/3 were sandwiched between a pair of BR goods brakes : - 

 

 

( 5822 & ADB 953398 appeared on the 'Odd Wagons' thread a while back.)

Edited October 5, 2021 by Wickham Green too

[Mark Saunders]

49 minutes ago, Wickham Green too said:

Doesn't seem to be any logic to the barriers used : 5822/3 were sandwiched between a pair of BR goods brakes : - 

 

 

( 5822 & ADB 953398 appeared on the 'Odd Wagons' thread a while back.)

The brake van has had it’s conventional couplings and side buffers removed and replaced with a Tightlock coupling to move EMU’s with a locomotive!

[Wickham Green too]

3 hours ago, DY444 said:

....... I have it in my head that the 76s had 36 way jumpers whereas the 455s have 42 way .......

The 76s only got MU fittings late in the day and were relatively few in number - so might they have used a pre-existing type of jumper cable - say from the Southern Region - with a number of wires unused ? .................. you'd expect the same receptacles to be used, too, but the construction of the loco end could have precluded that for some reason.

[eastwestdivide]

Do you have the same magazine 2 or 3 issues later? They might have published a clarification (bit of a long shot).

Also, the article does say "It is reported that..." which could already be regarded as casting some doubt on the information.

[rodent279]

33 minutes ago, eastwestdivide said:

Do you have the same magazine 2 or 3 issues later? They might have published a clarification (bit of a long shot).

Also, the article does say "It is reported that..." which could already be regarded as casting some doubt on the information.

Possibly, but it'll be buried somewhere in the attic. Since I've got to clear a load of stuff out, I'll find out in the next few weeks.

I suspect it's possibly an old wives tale, or some mistaken/misinterpreted journalism,

but it's not totally beyond the bounds of credibility, after all, the SR reused camshaft control gear and traction motors for the Wessex Electrics 5 years later. If the MU jumpers were reusable, and not that old either, then why not? Hats off to 'em for reusing rather than scrapping & buying new. Railways have been repurposing and reusing things since forever-look at the amount of lineside fencing in ex-GW territory made from old BG bridge rail.

Still, it seems a little improbable, especially considering that the cost of new jumpers must have been minimal compared to the cost of the rest of the emu.

[TravisM]

I'm sorry to contradict anyone but if you go on Flickr and search for Class 76's, you'll see that the majority of those that had MU cables fitted, still had them when they were towed off to the other side of the Pennines for scrapping

[frobisher]

1 hour ago, rodent279 said:

after all, the SR reused camshaft control gear and traction motors for the Wessex Electrics 5 years later.

More to the point the 455's recycled traction motors from withdrawn 4SUBs...

[DY444]

2 hours ago, Wickham Green too said:

The 76s only got MU fittings late in the day and were relatively few in number - so might they have used a pre-existing type of jumper cable - say from the Southern Region - with a number of wires unused ? .................. you'd expect the same receptacles to be used, too, but the construction of the loco end could have precluded that for some reason.

 

I'm not sure I'd call it "late in the day" given that the first group of 76s were fitted with mu equipment in the late 60s.  The 455s with their 42 way jumpers didn't appear until the early 80s.  Prior to the 455s the SR standard EP system used 27 way jumpers and off top of my head the pre-EP SR system used 12 way jumpers.

Edited October 5, 2021 by DY444

[Wickham Green too]

55 minutes ago, jools1959 said:

....... the majority of those that had MU cables fitted, still had them when they were towed off to the other side of the Pennines for scrapping

Doesn't mean the jumpers couldn't have been recovered by the scrapyards ............ but it does rather sound like the old wives were telling porkies.

[Davexoc]

Could it just mean that they re-used the design?

The recepticles would probably need rewiring back to a terminal board anyway, and the jumper cables would probably need replacing with new multi-core after years in the elements too....

[rodent279]

It could also be that the MU jumpers originally given to 76's were the standard SR type? 

[roythebus1]

The 455s also had re-used compressors from the pre-war EMU stock.

 

Having learnt the things when they were introduced, I can't remember that much about those details. i just know the brakes were bloody awful and they were very draughty.

[Wickham Green too]

1 hour ago, Davexoc said:

.... The recepticles would probably need rewiring back to a terminal board anyway, and the jumper cables would probably need replacing with new multi-core after years in the elements too....

It COULD BE that they had spent so many years in the elements that they had been replaced and the replacements were good for re-use. Naturally there would be wastage of the cable ends when tidying up for connection to different terminals - but I guess the class 76 jumpers would have started out longer as they had to bridge full length buffers rather than tightlocks.

 

All guesswork unless someone can track down the origin of that report !!

[rodent279]

Looking at these two photos.....

 

 

 

 

They are similar, at least from the outside. The fixed termination box is different, but there may have been good reasons for that.

 

[jim.snowdon]

8 hours ago, frobisher said:

More to the point the 455's recycled traction motors from withdrawn 4SUBs...

No, but they did use recycled EE507 traction motors from the 4EPBs and later SR EMUs. The EE507 became a more or less standard motor on the Southern, with the EE546s on the REPs and the 73s.

 

[jim.snowdon]

2 hours ago, rodent279 said:

It could also be that the MU jumpers originally given to 76's were the standard SR type? 

Or, a standard type from one of GEC/Metrovick/BTH or EE? Some technology changes remarkably slowly, applying the if it ain't broke don't fix it maxim.

 

[DY444]

10 hours ago, rodent279 said:

It could also be that the MU jumpers originally given to 76's were the standard SR type? 

 

As I said earlier the standard SR type at the time of both sets of 76 conversions was 27 way.  The 455s are 42 way.

[russ p]

It may have been that some components from the 76 jumpers were reused.  One thing to bear in mind is the 76 jumpers weren't actually that old only being fitted from about 1970

[frobisher]

On 06/10/2021 at 00:34, jim.snowdon said:

No, but they did use recycled EE507 traction motors from the 4EPBs and later SR EMUs. The EE507 became a more or less standard motor on the Southern, with the EE546s on the REPs and the 73s.

 

The later 4SUBs were EE507 motored and what became the 455/9's got their traction motors from them.

[John M Upton]

On 07/10/2021 at 08:15, frobisher said:

 

The later 4SUBs were EE507 motored and what became the 455/9's got their traction motors from them.

 

And on Southern, they are still going....  South Western have replaced all theirs with brand new electronic undergubbins just before they announced they are getting rid of them....