In 1988 local services on the lines out of Paddington were mostly in the hands of a fleet of 3-car Class 117 DMUs built by Pressed Steel at Linwood, near Glasgow from 1959 to 1961.
Set L404 approached Pangbourne with the 10:24 from Oxford to Reading on 30 September 1988. An influx of new Class 165s and 166s would displace the 117s from the Thames Valley in the early 1990s.