The electrification of the Manchester London Road to Sheffield
Victoria route by the London North Eastern Railway was started in 1936. The
outbreak of World War II put a temporary stop on the works that lasted from
1939 until 1947. the route finally opened in 1954.
Full details of this line
can be found on the EM2 society website which is reached via our links
page.
The line was energised at 1500v DC with
current collected by the trains from overhead wires. The western part of
the route featured a section that was ripe for commuter traffic and eight
three car units were built to work these services which covered the section
of line from Manchester to Glossop via Dinting and Hadfield. These units
which became know as class 506 were formed of three coaches - Driving Motor
Brake (DMB), Trailer Composite (TC) and Driving Trailer (DT). The later two
were un-powered while the DMB carried both the roof mounted pantograph current
collector and the electrical equipment, which was mounted under the floor
between the bogies. Each axle of the DMB was driven by a 175 hp GEC traction
motor giving a total of 700 hp for the three car unit. All the DMB cars were
built by Met-Cam and featured a driving cab at the outer end, behind which
was the guards van accommodation (the pantograph was on the roof of this
area). Behind this was an open saloon with seating for 52 third class passengers.
The TC car was also built by Met-Cam and had accommodation for 24 first and
38 third class passengers in saloon format. The DT cars were all built by
the Birmingham Railway Carriage & Wagon Company and had a driving cab
at the outer end behind which was seating for 60 third class passengers,
again in open saloon layout. There was no corridor connection between any
of the vehicles.
The units performed their duties along
the route with a good record of reliability. Little changed except the down
grading of first class accommodation to third in 1960 and the changes of
livery from green to blue and from blue to blue and grey as BR policy
dictated.
The main line to Sheffield closed to traffic in 1981 but
the Glossop section of line remained open. It was to be re-electrified at
25kV AC overhead as by then the 506s were the last 1500v DC unit operating
in Britain and thus non-standard. They were withdrawn after a final day of
service on the 7th of December 1984 and after that AC EMUs operated the service.
This is still the situation to-day.
