British Rail Class 157


Class 157 Strathclyde Sprinter was the designation applied to a range of Diesel multiple unit trains of the Sprinter family planned for regional use, in particular for the Strathclyde Passenger Transport Executive. As well as the class number, British Rail reserved carriage numbers in the 526xx and 576xx series for these units.
As the privatisation of British Rail began, the intended use of the new trains in the Strathclyde area on a range of both existing and newly reopened routes was shelved, owing to the lack of funding available for the reopenings that had been specified by the local authorities. An additional issue was Hunslet's attempt to transfer its intellectual property rights over a number of its engineering designs to another company in 1994. In the event, the order for the new trains was cancelled. Strathclyde eventually ended up receiving a batch of Class 170 units.