GWR Route: Banbury to Wolverhampton

GWR Route: North Warwickshire Line

Birmingham Snow Hill Station: gwrbsh73c

Close up of a three-car Diesel Multiple Unit powered by AEC 150hp engines is seen at Platform 6 with passengers both alighting and boarding. Later classified as Class 120 this type of DMU was for cross-country traffic and built at the British Rail Swindon Works. Totalling 194 cars in all and produced in three batches: 1958 - 49 sets for the Western Region, 1959 - 7 sets for the Scottish Region and 1961 - a further 9 sets for the Western Region. British Railways placed the order with AEC in the summer of 1956 for the equipment required for the 98 power cars and 47 trailers of the first batch. The order, along with equipment ordered from Cravens for 66 power cars and the 3 parcels cars, was valued at £830,000.

The first batch was ordered for the Western Region's West Country dieselisation scheme, which it hoped to complete by the end of 1959. The sets were expected to work between Bristol & South Devon. Their general reliability and good braking characteristics made them popular with drivers. In February 1959, the British Transport Commission place an order with AEC for the equipment for the seven ScR sets, along with equipment for Class 108s and 127s being built at Derby. These Class 120s were to work mainly on the Aberdeen to Inverness line although appearances at Oban were not unknown. Otherwise the cars worked mainly in the Western and Midland Regions. The final vehicles survived until 1989 with one trailer car surviving at the Great Central Railway.

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