LMS Articulated Railcar

In 1937 the LMS decided to produce a more modern diesel train for itself. This was a three-car articulated railcar that was outshopped from Derby Carriage and Wagon Works in 1939. The cars were numbered 80000, 80001 and 80002.

The streamlined three-car train was a single articulated unit; the two outer coaches were each 64 ft (19.51 m) long and rested on a centre coach that was 52 ft (15.85 m) long. The articulation was an idea that had been already taken up by Sir William Stanier for some locomotive hauled stock.

Mechanically the train was a development of railcars that had entered service from 1933 on the LMS Northern Counties Committee's (NCC) lines in Northern Ireland, using an identical arrangement of in-line powertrain as NCC railcars Nos. 2–4. Under each coach were two vertically mounted Leyland 125 bhp (93 kW) diesel engines driving the inner axle of each bogie through a Lysholm-Smith torque converter. There were six engines for the three-car set which gave a total power of 750 bhp (559 kW). The whole unit weighed 73 long tons, so this yielded a power/weight ratio of slightly more than 10 bhp/ton which provided a main line standard of performance with a maximum speed of 75 mph (121 km/h).

It worked first on the Varsity Line between Oxford Rewley Road and Cambridge, and then on St Pancras – Nottingham services. A second unit was planned but never built. 80000–80001–80002 was withdrawn on the outbreak of World War II in 1939, stored, and never re-entered passenger service.