The Southern Railway (SR) gave the designations 4-COR, 4-RES, 4-BUF and 4-GRI to the different types of electric multiple unit built to work the route between London Waterloo and Portsmouth Harbour. The 4-COR type units survived long enough in British Rail ownership to be allocated TOPS Class 404. The COR designation had previously been used for the 6-PUL units and was reused by them during World War II when the Pullman car was stored, but this stock was different from the 4-COR units.
The British Railways Class 24 diesel locomotives, also known as the Sulzer Type 2, were built from 1958 to 1961. One hundred and fifty-one were built at Derby, Crewe and Darlington, the first twenty of them as part of the British Railways 1955 Modernisation Plan. This class was used as the basis for the development of the Class 25 locomotives.
A number of different numbering and classification schemes were used for locomotives and multiple units operated by British Railways (BR), and this page explains the principal systems. This section also covers the post-privatisation period, as the broad numbering and classification arrangements have not altered since the break-up of BR.
British Railways coach designations were a series of letter-codes used to identify different types of coaches, both passenger carrying and non-passenger carrying stock (NPCS). The code was generally painted on the end of the coach but non-gangwayed stock had the code painted on the side. They have been superseded by TOPS design codes.
A number of different numbering and classification schemes have been used for carriages and wagons on Britain's railways, and this page explains the principal systems. Carriages and wagons have frequently had similar arrangements for classification and numbering, so are considered together. There are also links to other pages that deal in greater depth with the particulars of individual types.
The PEP Stock were prototype electric multiple units used on British Rail's Southern and Scottish Regions during the 1970s and early 1980s. They were forerunners of the British Rail Second Generation electric multiple unit fleet. Three units were built, one two-car unit (2001), and two four-car units (4001/4002). Under TOPS, the driving cars were originally classified as Class 461 with the non-driving motor cars as Class 462. They were later reclassified as Class 445 (4PEP) and Class 446 (2PEP).
The Southern Railway (SR) gave the designation 2-BIL to the DC third rail electric multiple units built during the 1930s to work long-distance semi-fast services on the newly electrified lines from London to Eastbourne, Portsmouth and Reading. This type of unit survived long enough in British Rail ownership to be allocated TOPS Class 401.
The Southern Railway (SR) gave the designation 2-HAL to the electric multiple units built during the late 1930s to work long-distance semi-fast services on the newly electrified lines from London Victoria to Maidstone and Gillingham (Kent). This type of unit survived long enough in British Rail ownership to be allocated TOPS Class 402.
The Southern Railway (SR) gave the designation 4-LAV to the electric multiple units built to work the semi-fast services on the route between London and Brighton. None of these units survived long enough in British Rail ownership to be allocated a TOPS class.
The Southern Railway (SR) gave the designation 2-SL to the small fleet of electric multiple units dedicated for use on the South London lines. None of these units survived long enough in British Rail ownership to be allocated a TOPS class. In Southern Railway/Region days, they mainly spent their lives as 2-car units on the ex-LBSCR Wimbledon-West Croydon Line with head code 2. They were distinctive, because they retained their flat roofs over the driving cabs, where the pantographs were originally situated.
Prior to the introduction of TOPS, electric multiple unit numbers were allocated by British Rail regions in their own series. Diesel multiple units did not carry unit numbers at first, but the Scottish and Western Regions later adopted their own series for these units, whilst elsewhere individual depots allocated unit numbers, often prefixed by their two-letter TOPS depot code.
The British Rail Class 419 Motor Luggage Vans were battery electric multiple unit cars built from 1959-61 by BR at Eastleigh Works.
The British Rail Class 306 was a fleet of electric multiple unit (EMU) trains introduced in 1949. It consisted of 92 three-car trains which were used on the Great Eastern Main Line between Shenfield and London Liverpool Street.
The British Rail Class 302 was a type of electric multiple unit (EMU) introduced between 1958 and 1960 for outer suburban passenger services on the London, Tilbury and Southend line. This class of multiple unit was constructed using the Mark 1 bodyshell and was slam-door.
The British RailClass 414 were two-car electric multiple units that were built between 1956 and 1963. They were withdrawn in 1995.
The British Rail Class 506 was a 3 carriage electric multiple unit (EMU) built for local services between Manchester, Glossop and Hadfield on the Woodhead Line, which was electrified in 1954 on the 1,500 V DC overhead system.
Rolling stock used on the London Underground and its constituent companies has been classified using a number of schemes. This page explains the principal systems for the rolling stock of the Central London Railway (CLR), the Underground Electric Railways Company of London (UERL), the District Railway (DR) and the Metropolitan Railway (MR). For information about individual classes of locomotives and other rolling stock, see London Underground rolling stock.
For more than a century, the Swiss locomotive, multiple unit, motor coach and railcar classification system, in either its original or updated forms, has been used to name and classify the rolling stock operated on the railways of Switzerland. It started out as a uniform system for the classification and naming of all rolling stock, powered and unpowered, but had been replaced and amended by the UIC classification of goods wagons.
The Southern Railway (SR) and the British Railways used the designation Sub to cover a wide variety of electric multiple-unit passenger trains that were used on inner-suburban workings in the South London area. The designation 'Sub' was first officially used in 1941 to refer to newly built 4-car units. However, during the 1940s large numbers of earlier '3-Car Suburban Sets' were increased to four cars by the addition of an 'Augmentation' trailer, and became part of the 4-Sub category. The SR and BR (S) continued to build or else rebuild 4-car units to slightly different designs which became part of the 4-Sub Class. Many of these later examples survived in passenger use until late 1983, by which time British Rail had allocated to them TOPS Class 405.
