H32 Diners

[Penrhos1920]

I've got an extract of the GWR lot list.  Lot 1534 (order date 7/1934) is for 2 Third Class Diners to diagram H32, numbers 10018 & 10020.  H30 to H32 were previously the articulated diner sets that by 1934 were not in use.  10018 was a First Diner (H30) and 10020 was a Third Diner (H32).  The dimensions are the same as originally built, 50'6".  The notes say "Ex Lot 1357 & 1359 taken into stock as new vehicles and old condemned. 1 dining & 2 vestibules 2 coach articulated unit.".  This seems to imply that they've been joined together! 

 

In 1936 these 2 coaches plus numbers 10034 (H30) & 10036 (H32) were lengthened to 58' and given 7' bogies and became normal Third Diner (H52) and were recorded as being used in an excursion set. 

 

Can anyone shed any light on this please?  To take a pair of diners and remove the kitchen car from them seems weird, especially as the GWR was decommissioning the articulated sets and converting them to standard coaches.

[mark54]

The 6 H30/H31/H32 Triplet dining sets were built in 1925 and, as you say, were separated and lengthened in 1936.

 

The H31 Kitchen Cars became Diagram H49 9657-9662. In 1955 they were further converted to Cafeteria Cars. I have never heard of a diagram number for the Cafeteria Cars.

4 of the H30 First Class Dining Cars became Diagram 50 9645-9648

4 of the H32 Third Class Dining Cars became Diagram 51 9649-9652

2 each of H30 & H32 became Diagram H52 Dining Cars 9653-9656. These had a Third Class layout, but 1 seating bay less and the addition of a toilet and cupboard.

[Coach bogie]

I believe this was due to two of the triplet diners becoming all third sets with the first class vehicles being listed as condemned and new coaches built but only for accounting purposes when actually the first class coaches were converted not actually scrapped.  Lot 1534 being raised for costing purposes.

 

In reality it is highly likely that there was an identity swop. 10020 for10034 and creating an all third dining set of 10034(former 10020,) 10035, 10036 and an all first dining set 10018,10019,10020(former 10034)

 

In the latter set 10018/20 were then rebuilt as third class, with costs covered by lot 1534.

 

Mike Wiltshire