British Rail Class 508

The British Rail Class 508, known as the 4PER, is a class of electric multiple unit passenger trains built by British Rail Engineering Limited at its Holgate Road carriage works in York in 1979 and 1980. They were a variant of British Rail's standard 1972 design for suburban electric multiple units, a family that eventually encompassed 755 vehicles in five classes: 313, 314, 315, 507 and 508. The units mostly worked on the Merseyrail network from 1982 until the class was withdrawn on 16 January 2024, after a farewell tour on 29 October 2023. Some sets were moved to other duties along the way, including three that Silverlink leased in 2003 for the Watford DC Line and reclassified as Class 508/3, and which were scrapped in 2013 after the Class 378 Capitalstar units replaced them.