Penrhos1920

I’ve found that there was also a 1920 edition. Was there an earlier one? I’d have thought that by 1905 there would have needed to be one as Churchward had introduced the Dreadnought coaches which were a lot bigger than the usual Dean coaches.

I don't think so Jonathan as the photo is probably pre 1923. The loco has a nameplate but lost it's name in 1930. The train looks like a pair of Birmingham district 4 wheel coach sets, possibly as many as 18 coaches. Most were formed in 1890s until early 1920s when bogie set took over.

I have a photo of a GWR Bulldog with a very long rake of 4 wheel coaches. The previous owner or photographer has written ‘Stalybridge Junction ‘ on the back. Now the only Stalybridge I know of is north east of Manchester, not the normal location for such a train. There are typical GWR lower quadrant signals in the background, so I think it must be a GWR location. But where please?

Did the GWR have a map of loading gauges similar to the weight restrictions that would show where the wider and/or longer coaches couldn’t go?

That's an intersting brake van in that first photo. Looks like a K17 postal brake van that's escaped from a mail train. Don't forget that milk trains often had 2 or 3 or more brake vans in them as trains got joined up a long the route. The GWR had a weird collection of old 4 and 6 wheel saloons repurposed for milk trains, mostly to carry churns I think. There was an 11 part series on GWR milk traffic in the HMRS journals at some point. I only have part 11 which doesn't tell me the year or anything, but I'm guessing the late 80s.

Sorry I’m a bit late. The coaches in the Didcot photo do not have flat sides. They were 4 of only 8 coaches built by the GWR to the ‘Bay Window‘ style. The coaches measured 8’6 across the doors and had the usual tumblehome at the bottom below the waist. Between the doors the body width was gradually increased to 9' 0¾ over the windows at the compartment partitions. Similarly the width also increased from the floor up and the gutter down, making them a more like oriel windows, rather than bay windows. The other coaches built to this style were the J3 and J5 sleepers. There are some drawings of some of these coaches with side corridors and the later centre corridors on my website: GWRCoaches.org.uk. PS the diagrams in the photo are from the front: K4, C6, A1, C7, D5 PPS the GWR royal saloon and dynamometer cars also had ‘bay windows’ but were different again.

Have a look here www.GWRCoaches.org.uk/1938.shtml#G62 for a similar view of it

It appears that 6 coaches were built for the Highworth Branch in 1939, all had 9' Fishbelly bogies as we call them or 9' Light Bogies (rocking bar type) as the GWR called them: C75, nos. 1237 & 1238 D125, nos. 1239 & 1240 E161, nos. 6830 & 6831 bogies came from a Toplight composite and Collett 1923 standard corridor coaches of 1923: 7965(E114), 7950(E113), 7561(E88), 7617(E115), not recorded for E161 coaches. The registers for the old composites record that they got the 9' light pressed steel bogies that had been built for the 1939 coaches. So why were Fishbelly bogies prefered to Light Pressed Steel bogies on the Highworth branch?

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There’s a bit of information here Collett 1938 stock. E155 was 1936 stock. 8 prefer the 1936 stock which had the running numbers painted on the cream.

So folk do you have any photos of interest pregrouping trains that really ought to be modelled?

I came across this photo on a well know auction. There's no copyright on the back. For all of you who have been lurking at the back of the class and haven't been paying attention there are 9 different designs of coach here including a one off at the front. The location is Pickles Bridge, Weymouth, circa 1910. Diagrams are T62, U4, T34 or T36, T27, R2, S3, S9, S6, T38 For anyone interested in the loco I can tell you its got 6 wheels and a bright shiny thing on top and that the seagulls have been decorating the tank.

On to what has been updated on the Dean era section: Liveries Animation has been revised to correct an error with the 1904 to 1908 liveries. But I haven't included gold lining around the ventilators yet. Lewis Classification has been extended to include a history of the styles and a count of how many coaches were built to each style. If you disagree with my counting please let me know! It's difficult when you only have 10 fingers, 10 toes and one xxx to count with!! Bogie coaches - some diagrams have had condemnation dates added. My conclusion is that most lasted 45 to 50 years or more if WWII got in the way. Photos of diagrams A2, D11, K2, M17 and Dean dynamometer car. Short coaches T5 to T9 added. New page for V and W diagrams. Photos of T27, T60, T62 Short coach identification guide has been finished and includes my favorite photo of a GWR train of short coaches; 9 coaches, 9 different designs. Who's going to model that? Two new pages about the coaches for the London Metropolitan servies.

That’s ‘cos Kernow don’t want the first production run to sell out too quickly. If they did announce a version with Brent or Kingsbridge destination then no one else would be able to get a railmotor.

Only the coaches content on penrhos.me.uk will disappear. The plan is to expand the Penrhos Junctions content on penrhos.me.uk My hosting is such that I can have as many domains as I like using one hosting package. But the second and subsequent domains are hosted using "web forwarding" which unfortnately means that the forwarded domains have to appear inside an iframe which then hides the individual page names in the address bar. It also stops me using a favicon and other things as it's a poor mans option. I could have spent more money and upgraded to a package that allowed 5 domains without we forwarding but that would more than double my hosting bill and I don't have that money at the moment.

You're welcome gents. I need to stop adding stuff for a while and make some models! I'm waiting for someone to say that I haven't included Hawksworth!!

Thanks for doing that so quickly. I'm waiting for Google to tell me who links to Penrhos.me.uk so I can contact them. Sorry it's awkward. That's because I'm using one hosting package to host 2 domains which stops anything other than https://gwrcoaches.org.uk appearing in the address bar. But you should be able to link into to individual pages as the page names haven't changed. eg www.penrhos.me.uk/Rdiags.shtml is now https://gwrcoaches.org.uk/Rdiags.shtml

I’ve moving the GWR coach content away from http://www.Penrhos.me.uk to its own domain https://gwrcoaches.org.uk. For the moment the old content is duplicated, but later next week I’ll remove it and put in redirects. If you link to any of my coach content you’ll need to change your links; all the page names are unchanged so it’s just the domain that you’ll need to change. If you find anything awry you can find me at the back of the Carriage Shed. All the content about Penrhos is unchanged. PS You’ll find a couple of new pages that might interest you.

A bit of GWR coach building history. When clerestory roofs were first introduced both the clerestory and the main roof were single arc. Then 3 arc roofs were introduced, but only for the main roof. The advantage of a 3 arc roof was greater height inside near the sides without increasing the centre height. Then after about 2 1/2 years the GWR decided to change the clerestory roof to 3 arc as well. There never was a single arc main roof with a 3 arc clerestory.

I think that the second coach is an E25. Facebook photo There are 2 ventillators on the clerestory that are right at each end of the coach; there's no space for a window between the end and either ventilator. That makes both end compartments 'half width'. Therefore I think it's E25 which was unique in having a half width compartment at both ends. I agree with @Miss Prism, the coach appears to be running lower than the D14. The far roof end, half way between the clerestory and edge, roof profile appears to change directions indicating a 3 arc roof.

I bought some 10' Dean bogies and P4 wheels fit nicely with bearings. You might want to shift the brakes as they are far to close to the bogie frame

It's update time. Sorry I've been silent for nearly 2 years - I spent a large part of lockdown unable to access the computer desk much as the wife and daughter were working from it and I've only got it back recently. Anyway I've just added a new page about Passenger Brake Vans, Parcels Vans and Hounds Vans and the corresponding Jack Slinn collection drawings. I had thought that by completing this page I had covered 98% of GWR 4/6 wheel coaches. But I then saw that there are no numbers allocated to diagrams T40/1 so I'll fill in those blanks this week. If you find another place that I've missed something please let me know.

When did the front strutts first appear? 3138 at some time after getting the bigger bunker has them. I've yet to find a photo of strutts and original bunker.

Does the carriage working programme say that they are corridor or non-corridor? We know that the set it ‘replaces’ is non-corridor. An X or + next to it usually means corridor

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.