Between 1959 and 1961 ninety-one three car electric multiple units were built by Pressed Steel at Linwood near Paisley for use on the Glasgow area electrified suburban lines. Originally classified as AM3 (Nos. 001-91) they became Class 303 (303001-091) under the TOPS renumbering scheme.
They were maintained at Shields Road depot, for services operating out of Glasgow Central, and at Hyndland for the north Clydeside services. They were dual voltage trains, as parts of the North Clyde Line and the Cathcart Circle were originally electrified at 6.25 kV, rather than the standard 25 kV.
The units had to be withdrawn from service over the weekend of 17th and 18th December 1960 following a number of transformer explosions, with the steam operated services having to be reintroduced. It wasn’t until October 1961 that electric services restarted after modifications. Electric services south of the Clyde started in May 1962.
The trains quickly gained the nickname the ‘Blue Trains’ because of the striking bright blue Caledonian Blue livery. As built, the windscreens wrapped around the ends of the driver’s compartment but stone throwing by vandals led to their replacement with flat toughened glass in the 1970s.
From 1967 the Class 303s, together with the almost identical Class 311s, started to work services to Gourock and Wemyss Bay. The 303s were repainted into the standard British Rail plain blue followed later by the blue and grey livery.
In 1984 BR began a refurbishment programme and fifty units were repainted in the striking new orange and black livery introduced by the newly created Strathclyde PTE. The remaining unfurnished units were withdrawn by 1989. Some units were also transferred south to work services around Liverpool and Manchester. Forty of the ‘303s’ passed to ScotRail upon privatisation whilst a
