British Rail British Railways (BR), which from 1965 traded as British Rail, was a state-owned company that operated most rail transport in Great Britain from 1948 to 1997. Originally a trading brand of the Railway Executive of the British Transport Comm ...

produced a variety of

railbus A railbus is a lightweight passenger railcar with an automotive engine. It shares many aspects of its construction with a bus, typically having a bus (original or modified) body and four wheels (2 axles) on a fixed base instead of on bogies. O ...

es, both as a means of acquiring new rolling stock cheaply, and to provide economical services on lightly used lines.

Terminology

Railbuses are a very lightweight type of

railcar A railcar (not to be confused with the generic term railroad car or railway car) is a self-propelled railway vehicle designed to transport passengers. The term "railcar" is usually used in reference to a train consisting of a single coa ...

designed specifically for passenger transport on little-used railway lines. As the name suggests, they share many aspects of their construction with a bus, usually having a bus body, or a modified bus body, and having four wheels on a fixed wheelbase, rather than

bogie A bogie ( ) (or truck in North American English) comprises two or more Wheelset (rail transport), wheelsets (two Railroad wheel, wheels on an axle), in a frame, attached under a vehicle by a pivot. Bogies take various forms in various modes ...

s. Some units were equipped for operation as diesel multiple units.

First generation

In the late 1950s, British Rail tested a series of small railbuses, produced by a variety of manufacturers, for about £12,500 each (£261,000 at 2014 prices). These proved to be very economical (on test the Wickham bus was about ), but were somewhat unreliable. Most of the lines they worked on were closed following the

Beeching Cuts The Beeching cuts, also colloquially referred to as the Beeching Axe, were a major series of route closures and service changes made as part of the restructuring of the nationalised railway system in Great Britain in the 1960s. They are named ...

and, being non-standard, they were all withdrawn in the mid-1960s, so they were never classified under the

TOPS Total Operations Processing System (TOPS) is a computer system for managing railway locomotives and rolling stock, known for many years of use in the United Kingdom. TOPS was originally developed between the Southern Pacific Railroad (SP), ...

system. In addition to those railbuses, BR ordered three for departmental (non-revenue earning) service. The full list of passenger and departmental units is set out below. Engines: * 79958/59, Gardner 6HLW of at 1,700

rpm Revolutions per minute (abbreviated rpm, RPM, rev/min, r/min, or r⋅min−1) is a unit of rotational speed (or rotational frequency) for rotating machines. One revolution per minute is equivalent to hertz. Standards ISO 80000-3:2019 def ...

* 79960–62/64,

Büssing Büssing AG was a German bus and truck manufacturer, established in 1903 by Heinrich Büssing (1843–1929) in Braunschweig. It quickly evolved to one of the largest European producers, whose utility vehicles with the Brunswick Lion emblem were w ...

, at 1,900 rpm * 79963, AEC A220X * 79965–69,

Meadows A meadow ( ) is an open habitat or field, vegetated by grasses, herbs, and other non-woody plants. Trees or shrubs may sparsely populate meadows, as long as they maintain an open character. Meadows can occur naturally under favourable condition ...

6HDT500 of at 1,800 rpm * 79970–74, AEC, * 79975–79, AEC,

Leyland Experimental Vehicles

British Rail returned to the idea of railbuses from the mid-1970s, and prototype four-wheel vehicles were developed jointly by

British Leyland British Leyland was a British automotive engineering and manufacturing Conglomerate (company), conglomerate formed in 1968 as British Leyland Motor Corporation Ltd (BLMC), following the merger of Leyland Motors and British Motor Holdings. It wa ...

and the

British Rail Research Division The British Rail Research Division was a division of the state-owned railway company British Rail (BR). It was charged with conducting research into improving various aspects of Britain's railways, particularly in the areas of reliability and e ...

. These were named Leyland Experimental Vehicles (LEVs) and consisted of double-ended

Leyland National The Leyland National is an integrally constructed British step-floor single-decker bus manufactured in large quantities between 1972 and 1985. It was developed as a joint project between two UK nationalised industries – the National Bus Com ...

bodyshells (chosen for their strength and cost-effective manufacturing) mounted on top of simple 2-axled railway chassis, which were a derivative of those used on the HSFV. The LEVs spent a substantial amount of time abroad in the hope of attracting export orders, however none were ever made. Domestically, the LEVs were the predecessors of the Pacer DMUs, of which the Class 140 is its closest relative. In total, five LEVs were built, which are listed below:

Routes

Lines regularly served by railbuses include:

Scotland

* Ayr – Dalmellington 1959–1964 * Craigendoran – Arrochar 1959–1964 *

Darvel Darvel (, ) is a town in East Ayrshire, Scotland. It is at the eastern end of the Loudoun, Irvine Valley and is sometimes referred to as "The Lang Toon" (). The town's Latin motto, , means "Not for ourselves, but for others". History Prehis ...

1959–1964 * Devon Valley 1959–1964 * Falkirk – Grangemouth 1967–1968 * Gleneagles – Crieff /

Comrie Comrie may refer to: Places *Comrie (crater), a lunar crater *Comrie, Fife, a village in Fife, Scotland *Comrie, Perth and Kinross, a village and parish in Strathearn, Scotland People with the surname

*Aaron Comrie (born 1997), Scottish footba ...

1958–1964 * Kilmarnock – Ardrossan / Ayr 1962-1964 * Larbert – Alloa 1967–1968 * Lugton – Beith 1959–1962 * Speyside 1958–1965

East Anglia

Cambridge to Mildenhall railway The Cambridge to Mildenhall railway is a closed railway between Cambridge and Mildenhall, Suffolk, Mildenhall in England. It was built by the Great Eastern Railway, and opened in two stages, in 1884 and 1885. Traversing thinly populated agricultu ...

* Witham-Braintree branch line * Witham-Maldon branch line *

Saffron Walden Railway The Saffron Walden Railway was a branch of the Great Eastern Railway between Audley End railway station, Audley End and Bartlow on the Stour Valley Railway between Shelford to Haverhill, a distance of . Branch information Opening The line was o ...

Midlands

* Bedford – Northampton /

Hitchin Hitchin () is a market town in the North Hertfordshire Districts of England, district of Hertfordshire, England. The town dates from at least the 7th century. It lies in the valley of the River Hiz at the north-eastern end of the Chiltern Hills ...

1958–1959 * Millers Dale – Buxton 1966–1967

Western

* Bodmin – Wadebridge 1964–1967 * Kemble – Cirencester Town and Kemble-Tetbury 1959–1964 * Yeovil Junction – Yeovil Town 1964–1966 – Pen Mill 1966

Preservation

A number of the BR railbuses, both first and second generation examples have survived into preservation, as follows: Additionally, AC Cars railbus 79979 was preserved. It was the first of the railbuses to be delivered and spent all its working life in Scotland. In 1968, it was moved to

Craigentinny Craigentinny is a suburb in the north-east of Edinburgh, Scotland, east of Restalrig and Lochend. Its name may be a corruption of the Gaelic ''Creag an t-Sionnaich'', meaning "the fox's rock". History Previously moorland, the first major hou ...

where the chassis was scrapped, and it was used as a battery store. It was moved to make way for the TMD in 1977 and the grounded body sold to the Strathspey Railway in 1977. It was scrapped by MC Metals,

Glasgow Glasgow is the Cities of Scotland, most populous city in Scotland, located on the banks of the River Clyde in Strathclyde, west central Scotland. It is the List of cities in the United Kingdom, third-most-populous city in the United Kingdom ...

, in 1990.

References

External links

AC Cars RailbusEM2 Locomotive Society – owners of Drewry railcar DB998901.

* ttps://web.archive.org/web/20040928234619/http://wickham-railbus.org.uk/ Wickham Railbus Group – owners of Wickham railbus DB999507.br>Train Testing site – Pictures of the testing and travels of the early railbusesdepartmentals.comThe Railbus Trust
– Working to protect the future of Single Car Railbuses and Second Generation DMU prototypes. {{British Rail DMU

Railbuses A railbus is a lightweight passenger railcar with an automotive engine. It shares many aspects of its construction with a bus, typically having a bus (original or modified) body and four wheels (2 axles) on a fixed base instead of on bogies. O ...

Railcars of the United Kingdom Bristol Commercial Vehicles D. Wickham and Company rolling stock Park Royal Vehicles multiple units AC vehicles Train-related introductions in 1950 Train-related introductions in 1978