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You did indeed! Here's the picture in question showing the other side of number 10995 Photograph provided by Graham Beare / Chris Brown from an image supplied by John Lewis (HMRS Steward), the original print is held by the National Archive. Conclusive proof of the brake lever being on the right hand end on both sides of the wagon! BW Dave

Reference is made in the bible to 'a prototype RHES arrangement' tested on 5 November 1905, and one assumes the wagon in question was in fact O5 10995 as in the picture above. The brake gear being picked out in white signifies an experimental/prototype purpose. Unlike O5 10793 (bible plate 26 and figure 19) however, which was the 1903 prototype for the subsequent DCI rollout, there seems to be no evidence of the RHES DCIX (figure 20) being adopted at that time on other wagons. What I think is remarkable is that the GWR was prototyping an arrangement long before, but in anticipation of, the BoT 1911 rulings. In the event, the GWR didn't need to get serious about implementing those rulings until the mid- to late-20s, and it seems the DCIX appeared only on V5 minks, so I suspect 10995 probably remained unique amongst the opens. Well done to Graham and Chris for proving DCIX existed long before it was generally thought to exist! I'm off to rewrite the gwr.org page (again), and I might feel the need to snaffle a model picture if I may, with your permission of course Dave.

I spoke with Chris this evening about the research done on GWR 4-Plank Open wagons built circa 1900-1904 and he has provided details of the brake arrangements for Lot 374, wagon no. 10995 was built on this Lot. The registers show the brake arrangements of wagons built on Lot 374, there are three different annotations used for this Lot, as:- * "double brake" or "lever, double" or "lever" which appears to be two brake blocks and a single handbrake lever; * "new lever" - which we think is probably DC1; * "right hand new lever" - which is DC1X on the basis of the evidence of the photographs posted here by Dave. Lot 374 for 123 wagons was built April 1902 to July 1902. Chris has summarised the brake details from the register entries as :- 62 Lever (50%), 23 New lever (19%) and 38 Right Hand New lever (31%). What is not clear to us at this time is just which wagons of Lot 374 were given cast plates - or if the fitting of plates was restricted to wagons with the same arrangement of barake gear. Inspection of the registers and tabulation of the information was done by Chris - my contribution was restricted to asking questions, providing Chocolate cake and drinking tea. regards, Graham