class-108-dmu

The BR Class 108 was a diesel multiple unit family of 333 vehicles built by British Railways Derby Works between 1958 and 1961, forming one of the most widely used of the BR Derby-built first-generation DMU types and giving BR a capable and standardised rural and cross-country diesel unit built at the railway's own workshops to a well-established Derby design. The Class 108 used the same general BR Derby DMU bodyshell and underframe that Derby had been refining since the early first-generation DMU programme, with BUT (AEC/Leyland) diesel engines mounted under the floor and mechanical transmission giving adequate performance for the stopping and semi-fast services on secondary routes across the Midlands, the North West, and other BR regions.

The Derby-built DMU types — of which the Class 108 was the most numerous — represented BR's own contribution to the first-generation diesel railcar fleet alongside the products of Metro-Cammell, Gloucester, Birmingham RC&W, and Pressed Steel. Building the units at Derby kept the work within BR's own workshops and allowed close integration between design, maintenance procedures, and the existing infrastructure of the Derby carriage works. The Derby body design was slightly more utilitarian than the Metro-Cammell Class 101 but equally practical for the rural and secondary services it was intended to work.

The Class 108 gave long and reliable service, remaining in regular BR use until the early 1990s. Six vehicles are preserved on heritage railways, making the Class 108 one of the better-represented first-generation DMU types in preservation.