This article was written on Friday 29 June 2012
External links updated on 30 May 2016
In October 2003, Hastings Diesels Ltd was issued an exemption to the “Mark I” rolling-stock ban, in respect of the vehicles in our fleet.
Our need for this exemption arose when the slam-door fleets of the main railway operators were being replaced with newer stock having higher “crashworthiness” characteristics; trains not meeting the modern standards were then banned from the main line, unless exempted following various modifications and operational assurances.
Our exemption had been due to expire in March 2013. In common with various other operators of heritage rolling-stock on the National Rail network, we have now been issued with a renewal of our exemption which is valid until March 2023. This was subject to our fitting Central Door Locking (already required since 2006), and a new requirement that we fit Buckeye Lower Shelf Brackets to further improve the transmission of forces between carriages in an incident.
The Office of Rail and Road’s website contains our exemption certificates.
We are pleased to observe that we can therefore continue to run railtours with our Hastings DEMU for a little while yet…!