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Stanleyville Class 150 Coach 2

The Class 150 Sprinters are a class of diesel multiple-units. 137 units (two of them being 3-car sets) were built by British Rail Engineering Limited in York from 1984 to 1987. There were three subclasses of the 150's, and they were built to replace many of the earlier, first-generation DMUs, which had entered service in the 1950s and 60s.

The three subclasses were 150/0, 150/1 and 150/2. The 150/2 is what we'll be focusing on here, but I will quickly mention that the two 150/0's were the prototype units. They were built in 1984, and are the only 150's to be built as three-car units. The fifty 150/1's looked much the same as the prototypes, but were built as 2-car units instead of 3. The 150/2's were the most common subclass. 85 of these units were built, and they are the only 150's to have gangways on the cab ends. This allows for passengers and the guard to walk from one unit to another, if they are working in multiple.

The technical specifications of the Class 150/2's are as follows:

Individual Coach length - 20.06 metres
Width - 2.16 metres
Height - 3.774 metres
Floor Height - 1.44 metres
Fleet numbers - 150201 to 150285
Top Speed - 121 kilometres per hour
Engine Type - Cummins NT855R5 (1 per coach)
Power Output - 286 horsepower (per engine)
Gauge - 1,435 millimetres

The 150's have their engines mounted underneath the floor. This is a very common arrangement on British diesel multiple units. One of the few exceptions was the Class 210, which had an engine room at one end of the unit.

Over their 35 years of service, Class 150 units have served all over England and Wales. Specific cities that 150's have run to include:

(England)
Penzance
Plymouth
Exeter
Bristol
Gloucester
Ipswich
Cambridge
Norwich
Great Yarmouth
Birmingham
Manchester
Liverpool
Leeds
Knaresborough
York

(Wales)
Newport
Ebbw Vale Town
Cardiff
Swansea
Shrewsbury

Today their are just three Train Operating Companies still using Class 150's in their fleet: Great Western Railway have 22 (the two 150/0's and twenty 150/2's) while Northern have all fifty 150/1's (some being transferred from GWR) and twenty-eight 150/2's. The 3rd TOC to use 150's is Transport for Wales.

150275 is one of the Northern units. She was actually the first Class 150 to receive the purple and white Northern livery, being repainted in early 2017. Today the locomotive is used in the Manchester, Leeds and York areas, but she is set to be replaced in the next few years, as part of Northern's introduction of the Class 195 diesel and 331 electric units.

In my fictional history, 150275 was retired in June 2019. She was purchased by the Stanleyville Railway and shipped to New Zealand, arriving at the Port of Auckland on the 7th of August that year. Instead it was converted to 3ft 6inch gauge and sent to the Stanleyville Railway soon after. The journey involved being sent by rail from Auckland to Morrinsville. Once there the two coahces that made up the unit were shunted onto their own low-loader truck and sent by road through Waitoa, Paeroa and Thames, arriving in Stanleyville on the 20th of August. Once she arrived at her new home, the unit was shunted onto the Pendletown Heights line by means of a temporary length of track. Once the unit was on the line the connection was permanently severed, and the Pendletown station was re-named to Pendletown Junction.

Today 150275 is the sole motive power on the shuttle service from Pendletown Heights to Pendletown Junction. This short line serves the new 'Heights' residential development, built on land that was once used for logging.