Published on 15th August 1996
During a four-week period in August 1996 Rail Express Systems/EWS carried out a series of test runs using newly converted PCV (Propelling Control Vehicles) on the West Somerset Railway.
The express parcels Class 47/7 loco arrived on the preserved line with several other mail vans, which would also be used as part of the trials. The consist was as follows: No.47733 94193 94195 94218 and PCV 94315. The majority of the testing took place between Bishops Lydeard and Norton Fitzwarren with some training taking place over the full length of the line to Minehead.
PCV coaches were a British design and were converted at Hunslet Berkley in Kilmarnock from redundant Eastern region commuter stock Class 307 driving trailers. A total of 43 were converted numbered 94302-94345. 94300 & 301 were prototype vehicles which were of a non-standard design, they were only really used for testing before being used on high-speed mail services from Walsall – Inverness having had their ‘push pull' equipment removed. The coaches were designed to work with the Rail Express Systems (RES)/English Welsh and Scottish Railways (EWS) Push Pull Class 47/7s which had recently undergone an extensive refurbishment program for use on long distance mail services in the UK.
The PCV (Tops Code NAA) allowed mail trains to be reversed from the rear coach at slow speed while at postal hubs and yards giving the driver a clear view, and making shunting of trains much easier. The trials on the West Somerset Railway and on the mainline network were successful and the coaches provided a further 8 years of front-line service for EWS. In 2004 the company sensationally lost the entire mail by rail contract. By 2007 none of the coaches were in service, and seven had already been scrapped and the rest remaining in storage pending scrapping. Only the prototype PCV 94301 was preserved and now resides on the Mid-Norfolk Railway, many other standard mail vans also entered preservation (including one on the West Somerset Railway) as their roller shutter doors made them idea storage vehicles.
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