British first generation 25Kv EMUs Classes 302 to 310 between 1992 & 2000 

Burning Wang .... Entry and exit was far quicker, but there was always one idiot who left one door open that someone else had to shut.

Being a kid in the early 80s getting, I think, class 304s and up on the line between Wilmslow in Cheshire and Stockport/Manchester with my Gran, the amount of times she had to tell me to stop jumping/bouncing on those lovely seats... They were more like matresses than seats.

My memories are much the same albeit plus the superb 4TC/4TC/4REP Bournemouth config and even the occassional 4LAV, all of them "proper trains" unlike the 2/4PEP foisted on the public in what, '73/4, awful.

@@David-ci1vn Yup, I remember the REP-TCs to, watching them fly through Surbiton. Used to like watching them move off coast bound with the REP at the rear and watching the compression between the REP and the TCs stock as the REP propelled the train away. As for PEPs, we still have the PEP offspring where I live, 507s & 8s. Soon to be history when the 777s eventually take over. I do remember the prototype PEP units working on the Waterloo suburban services.

@@neilcrawford8303 My parents moved tp B'mth and the Waterloo run was a failry common feature, "Smoked haddock, brown toast and tea", "Certainly sir", fast backwards to the future, oh please! I had a friend with BR, they tested two 4-REPs jumpered toegther on the Haywards Heath line, had to hold the breakers in as it broke the sound barrier!!

What were they like to drive? Any memories you would like to share?

...and the brake blocks!

Of course some of the Clacton units got a little more use in the Manchester area based at Longsight Depot as shown in the video.

I Think some did just have the red stripe painted over in pale blue. I seem to remember red paint showing through the flaky "baby" blue right at the end of their life. Could be a false memory though. Im old!

Sliding door emu's This video is about the slam door version

Some of the Class 302s - as seen here - were converted to Parcels Units (as were some Class 308s). Some Class 307s (not featured) were re-allocated to Leeds Neville Hill for the Leeds - Doncaster electrified local service. As seen, some Class 308s were also re-allocated to Leeds Neveille Hill, for the newly-electrified local service to Bradford, Forster Square, Ilkley and Skipton. Leeds' allocation of Class 307s lasted about 5 years, before being replaced by a specially-built batch of three Standard Class-only Class 321/9s. Their allocation of Class 308s lasted until 2001, when they were replaced by a batch of sixteen Class 333s.

There are two 302s at Mangapps Railway Museum near Burnham-on-Crouch in Essex. I believe they're waiting restoration. I pop back every few years and hope to go back inside one

Suburban stock design at the time usually had a slam door for each row of seats, vestibules were considered unnecessary space.

Interesting question. While 310s were slam-door, tapchanger-controlled and Westinghouse air-braked, they were first EMUs to use Mk2 coach-derived construction and wheelsets and first to feature disc braking. Arguably 310s are second-generation. The 310s were way ahead of all earlier EMUs for ride and refinement when introduced on Euston suburbans, except possibly for the 309 Clactons which were essentially based on 'InterCity' grade Mk1 stock. It cannot be purely because of cost-saving that BR chose to base the 312s on them nearly ten years later.

Thank you for your comment. According to 1987 edition of Platform 5 Locomotives and Coaching Stock they were built 1960-61. So there seems to be some disagreement between our sources. Cheers

That's incorrect.

@@MontyCantsin5 They were built in the late 1950's.

@@MrGriser: If you are 100% sure about this can you please update the wikipedia article for the class and cite sources for the dates you've mentioned.

@@MontyCantsin5 It won't let me!

I think the problem is in Britain, we grow overly attatched to not just our trains but to sentimentalism and nostalgia in general. I was born in the mid 90s so barely remember the trains in this video, but I do understand the sadness to see these familiar old trains gone. Part of the problem is trains nowadays aern't made in this country anymore, but by big multinational names like Siemens, Bombardier and Alstom, so some of the soul has been lost from when trains were made in workshops dating from the Victorian era dotted all over England. I'm sure in my middle age I'll be watching youtube videos of old trains from nowadays commenting how I went to school on them and it was "criminal" for them to be scrapped, but we will have to wait and see.

supafuckinmingster Brilliant? Have you been on southern or on the London tube? Constant delays, cancellations for silly pointless reasons, and piss smelling trains with toilets that are in bad conditions and you call this brilliant. I can tell that you haven't ridden some part of the railways in Britain yet...

These days the railways work reasonably well, albeit for ticket prices that are far too high. The real disaster that turned everyone off was when it was privatised and railtrack stopped all the maintenance in the 1990s so they could make more profit, resulting in several serious accidents and years of delays and mess ups. British Rail had its faults but it was never as bad as the privatisation fiasco.