GWR Toplight indentification.

[Re6/6]

Can anybody out there identify this coach please?

 

I think that it is a Toplight Brake 3rd with some of the panel beading removed. Are those American 8ft bogies? I'm not sure whether this is the compartment or corridor side.

 

I've looked through Russell and can't find anything in there. It seems to have an unusual window arrangement at the end next to the B set coach.

 

The picture was taken near Bodmin in the mid 1950s.

 

Thanks.

 

[Coach bogie]

It looks like a left hand brake D47 to me, though heavily rebuilt. Certainly the number of compartments, brake doors, full depth panels etc conform.  Several of these were used in ambulance trains and were subject to revised layout. It is unusual to have the brake window and access door windows blanked and compartment two appears to have double doors. The bogies are fishbelly types (Americans do not have leaf springs above the axleboxes) but I could not say what wheelbase at this angle.

 

Best I can offer

 

Mike Wiltshire

[nigel newling]

I would happily give way to David Geen, who is the toplight expert, but I think it is a mutilated D52. The remaining panelling makes it a BARS II, but I cannot guess why the second set of luggage doors and the luggage space light have been plated over. It also looks as if one light to the last compartment has also been plated. This series did get knocked about quite a bit from their original layout by the GWR before they were returned to general service after their stint in WW I Ambulance trains.

[Coach bogie]

I would happily give way to David Geen, who is the toplight expert, but I think it is a mutilated D52. The remaining panelling makes it a BARS II, but I cannot guess why the second set of luggage doors and the luggage space light have been plated over. It also looks as if one light to the last compartment has also been plated. This series did get knocked about quite a bit from their original layout by the GWR before they were returned to general service after their stint in WW I Ambulance trains.

 Not convinced it can be a D52. They have 4 vertical panels between the last double doors and the end compared to the three above as a D47. The D52 has seven vertical panels between the two sets of van doors compared to the three shown above as a D47. Also a D52 is only a three compartment coach, whereas the coach above has at least four from the above door ventilator count. This results in a much smaller van section as the D47 and as the shot compared to a larger van section of the D52. American bogies were the norm for the D52 whereas the above has fishbelly, though alot of bogie swops did take place.

 

I am still of the opinion it is a D47. I have some of DG's data infront of me and it would be one serious rebuild to get the above coach.

 

Mike Wiltshire

[Clive Mortimore]

Could the coach be in departmental service, hence the alterations? Just a thought.

[Coach bogie]

Could the coach be in departmental service, hence the alterations? Just a thought.

 I had given thought to that but I cannot find any reference to the alterations. Clearly n ot all were recorded. The double doors in the compartment section would back your thoughts up. There are several clerestory rebuilds with the same double door arrangement in the compartment area, all the seats/compartment walls stripped out and they were used for parcels traffic. By the 1950's much of the toplight fleet were coming to the end of their mainline career and such a conversion would make sense.

 

Mike Wiltshire

[Clive Mortimore]

Having a second look at the coach there seems to be a lack of door handles, hinges and commode handles on most of the doors. The end coupled to the locomotive has what appears to me as a faint circular marking, is this a condemned sign or am I seeing things?

[Clive Mortimore]

On yet another look the circular thing might just be a mark on the photo.

[Coach bogie]

Having a second look at the coach there seems to be a lack of door handles, hinges and commode handles on most of the doors. The end coupled to the locomotive has what appears to me as a faint circular marking, is this a condemned sign or am I seeing things?

Well spotted,  I had not picked up on that. It fits in with a parcels conversion. All the doors will have been locked/screwed up,with exception of access only via double doors at each end and guards door.  Russell part 1 fig 177 page 190 shows a clerestory wih similar alterations in parcels use.

 

Mike Wiltshire

[Coach bogie]

I would happily give way to David Geen, who is the toplight expert, but I think it is a mutilated D52.

From David Geen. It is a D47 either no 3557or 3558. The coach was covered in the GREAT WESTERN STUDY GROUP 'PANNIER' issue 19. Now who was the editor then....oh yes....it was me and I didn't remember publishing the article!

 

Extract below that explains all that can be from little data available.

 

Mike Wiltshire

 

Looking at this photograph, dated May 1956, this vehicle is already something of an oddity, a left handed 4 compartment brake third with the later upper paneling style of full height vertical panels, usually termed Bars II. It is thought that there were only four built as left handed vans, nos. 3556 to 3559 and of these, two were ‘called up’, nos. 3556 & 3559. They had originally been built as part of Lot 1195, which was for 30 vehicles, 20 of which were to 4 compartment D.47 and the other 10 of the 3 compartment D.52. Both of those taken into WD service were, if the renumbering/CAT sequence follows true, numbered WD 3556 and WD 3559, part of CAT 27. Here these two go missing and there is no link to any of the later rebuilds that I can make, however, it is worth mentioning that six vehicles from CAT 27 were included in the later Passenger Brake Van conversions, K.34-36, which were cobbled together from damaged coaches. Both of the other two D47 coaches (nos.3557 & 3558) were still in existence at the time of the photograph and it would seem most likely that our example is one of these but neither have any alterations shown against them!

 

Looking closely at the photograph, the outstanding part of this conversion is the extra luggage compartment added by removing the first compartment. Whether this was done in the 1920’s or later isn’t known because it appears to have gone un-recorded, an amazing thing for the GWR who seemed on occasions to issue a new diagram when the ashtrays were full! It may well have taken place in later days when alterations to older stock did happen without it being recorded, but the way the work has been carried out suggests otherwise. This looks like a proper job; note the ventilators above the double doors, one of which still has some beading! Did the conversion go the full width, with double doors on both the corridor side and in the corridor wall? There is no evidence of this coach being converted but are there any other views of this vehicle in use in Cornwall around this time. It probably wouldn’t have wandered very far as I believe it’s being used as a strengthening coach and may have remained in the area, in use or parked up, for some time.

[nigel newling]

I yield :-)

 

It was the BARS II requirement that seduced me. There are surprisingly few pictures of panelled toplight in the Russell volumes and the returning coaches from the ambulance trains are worth a chapter in their own right. I have a particular interest in 2355, one of the RH BARS I which was, for a short time, fitted with a buffet bar for the Wolverhampton - Penzance service and continued on this route after reversion. The only picture I have I found in "Salute to the Great Western" compiled by CJ Allen. I would love to know what she looked like just post WWII.

[Coach bogie]

I yield :-)

 

It was the BARS II requirement that seduced me. There are surprisingly few pictures of panelled toplight in the Russell volumes and the returning coaches from the ambulance trains are worth a chapter in their own right. I have a particular interest in 2355, one of the RH BARS I which was, for a short time, fitted with a buffet bar for the Wolverhampton - Penzance service and continued on this route after reversion. The only picture I have I found in "Salute to the Great Western" compiled by CJ Allen. I would love to know what she looked like just post WWII.

 I am making 2365 which was the same buffet bar conversion on a D46. 2365 reverted back to the original layout 12/36, less some panelling, and I would imagine 2355 would have been given similar treatment having been converted back only six months earlier in 6/36.

 

Mike Wiltshire

[Re6/6]

Many thanks to all for the detailed info. 

 

Further details regarding the picture are that it was taken on 17th May 1956 and describes it as "an afternoon 'up' train approaching Bodmin Road (from the branch) on which a 'Corridor Van Third' was attached to the front of the B-set for strengthening purposes"

 

I've stretched the image to give a better view of what it was.

 

What did BARS 1 & 2 mean? I've always been curious!

 

What would the best guess as to it's colour? The lack of door and commode handles would seem to indicate that it was a 'parcels/general traffic' conversion.

 

 

 

It will make an interesting project. 

 

I have done the missing beading before on Ratio coach sides.Please excuse the awful commode handles! The body is not secured to the chassis.

 

[nigel newling]

BARS II - You will note in the photograph that the panels above the waistline between the luggage doors and the end reach up to the cantrail as complete panels. Looking at Mike Wiltshire's model, a BARS I, in the same area, the vertical panels stop short and there is an additional, horizontal panel above, along the line of the toplights. The panelling style changed over at some point during the build programme of the D47s - hence my mistake. For completeness, the MULTIBARS grouping refers to a different form of underframe bracing - a short lived design experiment.