The Ecclesbourne Valley Railway DMU Association

E50170 was built by Metropolitan-Cammell at their Saltley works in 1957 as part of lot number 30255. It was initially
allocated to the North Eastern region of British Railways, outshopped in lined green. After spending most of its working life in this region, the vehicle moved to work some services in the Norwich area where it was fitted with Radio Electric Token Block instrumentation for single line working.

At some point during the working life of the vehicle it was renumbered from 50170 to 53170 to avoid confusion with Class 50 locomotives and the First Class seating area was removed and converted into Standard Class accommodation.

 

In 1996, the vehicle was transferred to the Scottish region and was specially painted by Scotrail into a unique Strathclyde Passenger Transport Executive blue livery to celebrate the launch of a new Motherwell to Cumbernauld service. After spending a few years running this route, the vehicle, and now well into the era of privatisation, finally transferred to the First North Western franchise seeing out the remaining days based at Longsight paired with vehicle 53253 as set number 101692. It was allocated to services in the Manchester area and during this time the vehicle retained its unique livery and was also fitted with modern Train Protection and Warning System, TPWS, equipment too to allow it to run on major main lines.

The vehicle was one of a final batch of six Class 101 vehicles to be withdrawn on Wednesday 31st December 2003, the last day, and it entered preservation at the Midland Railway Butterley just a few weeks later allowing it to star in “as withdrawn” condition at the Railcar50 event at the Severn Valley Railway in 2004. Since then, considerable work has been undertaken on the vehicle with it being returned into original British Railways lined green livery and wearing the as-built number. The First Class accommodation has been rebuilt and bodywork repairs allowed the original four marker light system at the front to be restored to use. The RETB equipment has now been removed; however the vehicle retains the TPWS system.

Seats: 12 first, 52 second.
BR set number: 101692