Paignton & Dartmouth Railway

The Paignton & Dartmouth Steam Railway runs 6.5 miles along the coast from the mainline at Paignton to Kingswear, on the estuary to the river Dart. The railway runs through stunning scenery and is one of the most popular heritage railways.

The railway is unique in having a fully commercial (rather than heritage) outlook, and is the only heritage railway to pay a dividend to its shareholders.

The railway is mainly steam operated so has never used DMUs in conventional passenger services. However the similarity between suburban centre cars and Great Western Railway coaching stock lead to the line acquiring two Class 116 centre cars in 1984 followed by a further six Class 117 centre cars in the 1990’s, to form a GWR style rake of vacuum braked coaching stock. An unexpected addition came in the mid 2010's in the form of a Class 115 trailer put to use in a static role.

For 30 years the railway made regular use of up to seven of the DMU trailer fleet, usually in mixed trains running with traditional hauled Mark 1 coaching stock. For many years there were rumours that there were plans to phase out the use of the DMU vehicles in favour of purchasing more Mark 1's, but they continued in traffic albeit relegated to busier times.

In the Mid 2020's the railway finally decided to slim down the number of DMU's in the fleet with two vehicles sold on.

59004 Class 116 TS

59488 Class 117 Exhibition Coach