British Rail Class 401

British Rail Class 401

The Southern Railway (SR) gave the designation 2-BIL to the DC third rail electric multiple units built during the 1930s to work long-distance semi-fast services on the newly electrified lines from London to Eastbourne, Portsmouth and Reading. This type of unit survived long enough in British Rail ownership to be allocated TOPS Class 401.

Read more about British Rail Class 401:  Construction, Formations, 7TC, Preservation

Famous quotes containing the words british, rail and/or class:

    In New York—whose subway trains in particular have been “tattooed” with a brio and an energy to put our own rude practitioners to shame—not an inch of free space is spared except that of advertisements.... Even the most chronically dispossessed appear prepared to endorse the legitimacy of the “haves.”
    Gilbert Adair, British author, critic. “Cleaning and Cleansing,” Myths and Memories (1986)

    Old man, it’s four flights up and for what?
    Your room is hardly any bigger than your bed.
    Puffing as you climb, you are a brown woodcut
    stooped over the thin rail and the wornout tread.
    Anne Sexton (1928–1974)

    He could jazz up the map-reading class by having a full-size color photograph of Betty Grable in a bathing suit, with a co- ordinate grid system laid over it. The instructor could point to different parts of her and say, “Give me the co-ordinates.”... The Major could see every unit in the Army using his idea.... Hot dog!
    Norman Mailer (b. 1923)