Help with identifying departmental carriage

[EddieB]

Going back over some negatives, I've found one that seems I missed logging previously.  Taken at Perth (Scotland, not Western Australia!) in June 1980, I'm struggling to identify the carriage lurking behind the road overbridge.  To my eyes, it looks similar to an LMS full brake (BG) that has been modified for departmental service - addition of windows, removal of corridor connection - but I'm puzzled by what appears to be matchboard bodywork.  LMS carriage design is outside my comfort zone to be sure, but I'm unaware that the LMS used a horizontal matchboarding construction. 

 

Other than the strange lettering ("NEDIVI"?) no decals or numbering are discernible.

 

[petethemole]

That looks like corrugated iron (or other material) cladding rather than boarding, because of the way it caught the light.

[BernardTPM]

The horizontals are odd, but going by the arrangement of footsteps on the underframe (which looks pretty standard LMS) it was probably a brake coach. NEDiv could be 'North Eastern Division'. The rebuild looks pretty extensive.

[hmrspaul]

The heavy horizontal boarding, with Bachmann style planking grooves, appears to have been used in the north, for example http://PaulBartlett.zenfolio.com/lmrdepartmentalstock/e743da268

 

http://PaulBartlett.zenfolio.com/lmrdepartmentalstock/e710940a5

 

http://PaulBartlett.zenfolio.com/lnerdepartmentalcoach/e37ac88c1

 

http://PaulBartlett.zenfolio.com/lnerdepartmentalcoach/efea8a3   http://PaulBartlett.zenfolio.com/lnerdepartmentalcoach/e96455c1

 

There are probably some more in these.

 

Paul

[petethemole]

That's more likely; the heavy top chamfer on the boards catching the light made it look like corrugated. Enlarging in Paint gave a better rendition than enlarging in IE.

 

Pete

[EddieB]

I thought I'd scoured Paul's site for matching images, so I'm pleased to see what you've turned up.  Does rather beg the question as to when and why the grooving was applied, and why some had vertical grooving on the ends and some horizontal.

 

Keeping the file size small for uploading here doesn't help with resolution of detail, so here's a crop of the area of interest.

 

 

 

[BernardTPM]

I've seen that kind of grooved planking on ex-NBR coaches before but, as shown in Paul's bottom two links, only on the lower half of the side. The NBR used to have raised panelling (the Scottish '3-layer' style) on the lower sides and this was often replaced with horizontal boards even in passenger service in later LNER days. With the whole of the sides and ends done that way it makes it very hard to identify what the coach originally looked like. The smooth roof would suggest that it's either wood and canvas, but without the normal LMS rainstrips, or a welded steel roof, the latter suggesting post-war construction.