Comparison of double-door sizes on BR GUVs and BGs

[Jim Martin]

Can someone tell me how wide the double doors on BR GUVs and BGs were, please?

 

The reason I'm asking is that the roller shutter on the Farish super BG is just over 8mm wide and the entire door unit, including the runners on each side, is 9mm wide, while the doors on the same manufacturer's GUV are 10.5mm wide. I thought that the roller shutters were the same width as the original doors, so is one of the models wrong, or did the vehicles really have differently-sized doors? Thanks

 

Jim

[melmoth]

If you're comparing BGs with GUVs you're not quite comparing like with like because the body profiles are different.

 

From Parkin's Mark One Coaching Stock regarding GUVs:

 

"The flat sides precluded the use of standard doors so the opportunity was taken to make the double door units of these and the smaller CCTs open to a width of 5ft."

 

[Jim Martin]

That's really helpful. I'd been thinking that both the BG and the GUV would have been designed around a standard opening - perhaps one that also took in other factors, like the dimensions of the BRUTE trolley. I hadn't considered the different body profiles, but even if I had I'd probably still have bet on a standard opening, even if the doors themselves were physically different.

 

Your reference above seems to confirm that the GUV doors should be wider than those on the BG. This is a great relief, given that I'd hacked great holes in the body of an expensive model before discovering the discrepancy and having a crisis of confidence! Many thanks

 

Jim

[BernardTPM]

The Southern Region MLVs also had 5 foot wide double doors, but to the curved profile. The earlier single MLV for the NER had 4 foot wide double doors. From memory I think the Gatwick Driving ends also used 5 foot wide double doors.

[The Stationmaster]

20 hours ago, Jim Martin said:

That's really helpful. I'd been thinking that both the BG and the GUV would have been designed around a standard opening - perhaps one that also took in other factors, like the dimensions of the BRUTE trolley. I hadn't considered the different body profiles, but even if I had I'd probably still have bet on a standard opening, even if the doors themselves were physically different.

 

Your reference above seems to confirm that the GUV doors should be wider than those on the BG. This is a great relief, given that I'd hacked great holes in the body of an expensive model before discovering the discrepancy and having a crisis of confidence! Many thanks

 

Jim

The BRUTE was designed to fit the van doors rather than the other way round as it came a lot later than the BR standard NPCCS designs.

[Jim Martin]

Ah. All that I knew about them was that there were a hell of a lot of them at big stations by the time I started travelling around to look at trains (the very end of the 70s)!

 

Jim

[The Stationmaster]

15 hours ago, Jim Martin said:

Ah. All that I knew about them was that there were a hell of a lot of them at big stations by the time I started travelling around to look at trains (the very end of the 70s)!

 

Jim

There were a lot of them - in one of my past jobs I had to put together the Daily BRUTE return but fortunately I didn't have to go out and count them    When the numbers didn't balance the discrepancies could easily run into three figures - at just one station (their fault for not 'adjusting' the numbers before they reported them  ).

[Fat Controller]

15 minutes ago, The Stationmaster said:

There were a lot of them - in one of my past jobs I had to put together the Daily BRUTE return but fortunately I didn't have to go out and count them    When the numbers didn't balance the discrepancies could easily run into three figures - at just one station (their fault for not 'adjusting' the numbers before they reported them  ).

When did BRUTES first appear, Mike? The oldest photo I've seen with them in it was taken at Swansea High St in the early 1960s.

[The Stationmaster]

46 minutes ago, Fat Controller said:

When did BRUTES first appear, Mike? The oldest photo I've seen with them in it was taken at Swansea High St in the early 1960s.

I'm fairly sure that it was early '60s for the prototypes Brian.  There was initially an experimental batch before series production started and by the time I joined BR full time in 1966 they were on to the modified version which had different brakes because the original hydraulic handbrake had been found to be distinctly unreliable.  I don't think the (red painted) Post Office owned ones were around in any numbers until the latter half of the 1960s but the BR blue painted version without a cage was around by roughly the mid 1960s I think.

 

The regular BRIUTE working parcels trains on the Western, with Circuit labelled vans, were definitely running by 1966 and probably dated from around 1964/65 I think.