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how common were 2 car class 110 DMUs?


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I'm thinking of buying a Hornby class 110. I can remember them as 3 car units on the Calder Valley line between Manchester and Leeds. Looking on Ebay i see that Hornby produced a 2 car version and that it is mainly found in all over plain blue livery. Was this a common configuration in this livery and what type of diagrams did they work and on which regions? My modelling period is 1978 to 1985 approx. A quick Google search of images shows plenty of 3 cars in both plain blue and blue and grey but the two cars seem to be found in just blue grey livery.

i realise it's an old model. Can anyone tell me how accurate dimension and detail wise is the Hornby 110?

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Prior to the pacers coming in 2 car 110 were very common on Leeds to Bradford and beyond as 141 were not used due to the gradients. They were however all B/G by that time (1983ish); the only all blue stock seen by then was the occasional NH 104. It is before my time but I thought that all the 110 were refurbished and would have the reverse white and blue strip with the WY metro rose between all blue and b/g.

 

Apparently 110s lost the centre cars to speed up the service in 1982. The peek Leeds-Manchester services seemed to be 4 cars.

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I may be wrong, but when the centre cars were taken out of them, I belive that each power car (as they were now power-twins) had an engine removed as well, which would have a serious impact on power to weight ratio....

 

I always liked to overall build of the Calder Valley sets, they seemed better than the Met-cams in being screwed together, which a much more interesting face! I remember my cab ride in one on the Windermere (!) branch when i was a nipper, one engine in the set was contiunally shutting down, with the driver re-starting it all the time. When we arrived at Oxenholme he went off to find a watering can to put some coolant back into it....

 

The biggest issue with the Hornby model is the wierd angle the tumblehome. I'm not really sure what you can do with it, I think you should be able to round it off, so that it doesn't have that corner look to it, but then you are going to have to repaint it.....

 

Andy g

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Yes, Andy G. I did wonder why Hornby did that, considering the warm reception and favourable reviews the models received when they first came out. When I did my class 104 conversions using the 110 shells, I rounded off that 'peak' in the tumblehome to improve the appearance a little. Of course, I had to do a complete repaint anyway on these, but any untouched 110s I have also still have the sharp crease there.

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I may be wrong, but when the centre cars were taken out of them, I belive that each power car (as they were now power-twins) had an engine removed as well, which would have a serious impact on power to weight ratio....

 

I

Andy g

 

It was the 111s which had one engine removed.

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Are you sure? During the last years that I can recall the 110's trundling in and out of Huddersfield I'm sure more than one set only had exhaust stacks up one side of the inner ends, a sure sign that one engine had been removed...

 

The 111's were another unit that was intersting to be in. A bit more get up and go, but they tended to rattle more too!

 

Andy G

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Are you sure? During the last years that I can recall the 110's trundling in and out of Huddersfield I'm sure more than one set only had exhaust stacks up one side of the inner ends, a sure sign that one engine had been removed...

 

The 111's were another unit that was intersting to be in. A bit more get up and go, but they tended to rattle more too!

 

Andy G

 

I think you will find that this was the 104 which had one engine removed in each car and was painted Blue and Grey with a blank line on the cab front, from memory.

 

XF

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Hi. The 2-car 110 power twins were used on the Hull to Bridlington and Scarborough line after removal of the TSL. I remember one journey from Beverley to Hull, which at the time in the mid-'80's, took about 14 minutes, that on this day the unit covered it in 11 minutes (including the call at Cottingham).

 

Interestingly, looking at this the other way, there were some 4-car sets around in the '70's, which used spare class 104 TSL's to make up the 4th car. The power twins were not made into single engine cars, it was the 111 units as stated above.

 

All the best,

 

Market65.

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