Previous projects carried out by The 2857 Society

GWR Bow-Ended Coach Number 5043

Owned by 2857 Society from 1981 to 2014

When CB Collett took over as Chief Mechanical Engineer of the GWR in 1922 a new bow-ended carriage design was developed which, with the re-introduction of the chocolate and cream livery, was to produce an outward appearance just as distinctive as the Churchward ‘Toplight’ design that it superseded. The new ‘bow ended era’ was to last until 1934 and was later repeated, albeit to a different profile, in the final period of GW carriage design from 1946 in Hawksworth’s main line stock.

The idea behind the bow ends was to reduce the length of the corridor connections between coaches following complaints from nervous passengers. The new stock was all steel panelled, having a full bodied appearance with cleaner lines and a higher waistline than the ‘toplight’ vehicle. A wide variety of coach types was produced, ranging from non-corridor suburban sets to catering vehicles and the famous ‘super saloons’ of 1931. However, the bow-ended era is probably best typified by the many hundreds of standard 57ft coaches produced between 1925 and 1929 which form the backbone of the GW main line sets for some 20 years.
The 2857 Society’s former mess coach was one of these, being a full third, completed in June 1928 to diagram C54, lot 1383, and numbered 5043. The original internal layout seated 64 passengers and consisted of eight compartments with a side corridor and a toilet cubicle at each end. Mounted on standard 7ft wheelbase bogies the total weight was 31 tons and the overall body dimensions are 58’ 4½” long x 9’ 0” wide.
Many of these coaches survived in general service until 1961 and fortunately several escaped scrapping by conversion for departmental use during the early 1960s. Thus 5043 became DW 150301 in June 1963 when, as one of a batch of six similar conversions, it was allocated to the Running and Maintenance Department and served at least part of its new existence in the Swindon breakdown train. As part of the conversion several doors and windows were blanked off and an internally operated hand brake was added. When of no further use in this role the coach was offered for sale by tender in 1981. The society’s bid of £580-00 + VAT was successful and it was moved to Bewdley by rail on Thursday 22nd October 1981 at a cost of £170-00 + VAT, plus an additional £25-00 + VAT for a new set of axlebox pads.
On its arrival on the SVR it was maintained as the Society’s workshop, store and mess vehicle, while we allowed the GW(SVR)A to cannibalise the toilet bowls and washbasins for use in service vehicles, leaving us additional storage space at one end, while the other we converted into a hugely welcome shower cubicle. This rebuilding proceeded on a piecemeal basis over the years, but by 1996 its condition had gently deteriorated to the point when a ‘kill or cure’ solution was required. It was decided to re-panel the coach completely to stand the best chance of keeping out the weather and saving the basic structure for posterity. The compartment side was tackled first and this task was greatly simplified by the decision to install plain blank panels along the workshop area, where we had covered the windows internally with a large tool rack. Not only did this speed the job up but it also resulted in a far more water-tight construction in an area where monitoring for leaks was difficult. Another discrete modification we made was to overlap the roof panels onto the sides, in the manner of the later Hawksworth coaches, rather than leaving a wooden ledge for standing rain water to collect as in the original design. This ‘cheat’ was hidden behind the gutters, and so was virtually invisible on the completed vehicle. Large sections of the wooden framework were found to be rotten and had to be replaced, including all four vertical ‘corner posts’, each a complex piece of timber, curving in two planes and joining the horizontal members by means of carefully cut joints. The recessed window surrounds originally had exposed oak framing that was simply painted. As can be expected, the paint tended to fall off, and the oak tended to rot at the joints, so their general appearance was usually “moth eaten”. From about 1932 onwards the GWR used a steel pressing for the recessed shape on doors only, the tooling for which has long been scrapped. In conjunction with other SVR coach groups with similar vehicles the ‘2857 Society’ found a suitable supplier and organised a set of small tooling for the window corner recesses, a set of four then requiring welding with adjoining straight pieces to form the finished shape. The main bodyside windows were originally wood-framed, but having produced these pressings we went ahead and fitted them to all the windows for a smarter effect.
The second, corridor, side was completed in the summer of 2005 and this too incorporated a simplified blank section, as designed in the Swindon modification of 1963, around the stove in the messing area. These blank sections frequently gave rise to the false notion that No. 5043 was once some kind of catering vehicle.
This overhaul was carried out on the basis that all modifications could be reversed if ever it was desired to restore this coach to passenger use, but that in the meantime the basic structure was as well preserved from the effects of the elements as reasonably possible for a vehicle stored out in the open.
Early in 2014 we were approached by the ‘LNER Coach Group’ who hoped to use our coach as their workshop. A three-way deal was proposed, whereby the GW(SVR) Association purchased the coach but the LNER Group used it until the GW(SVR)A was ready to restore it. In view of the belief that we would be most unlikely to overhaul 2857 at Bewdley next time around and the fact that we were not experienced in carriage restoration, this seemed an ideal opportunity to give 5043 a new lease of life and to remove a likely millstone from round our necks. Indeed some of our overhaul work had left one side a bit out of true, so the net result was that it is probably fair to say the coach was not suited to restoration by the faint hearted!
Thankfully nobody could call the SVR C&W teams faint hearted and they are aiming to build up a train of even older GW coaches than those currently in service on the SVR, this time incorporating Churchward ‘Toplights’ and Collet ‘Bow-Enders’. However, it is not intended that ‘our’ 5043 should re-appear as its old Corridor Third self, but that it should emerge as the set’s Buffet Car, so the false notion mentioned earlier will finally come true! This Buffet Car is to be based on Swindon Lot 1349 of 1925. These were four vehicles, numbered 9578 to 9581, built with the bow ended body and underframe but for use as cross country restaurant cars. It is intended to make 5043 as near the same as the original cars as possible but to convert the kitchen area for invalid use and the pantry into a buffet counter while a disabled access toilet will be built in the middle. This will suit current SVR requirements for buffet facilities and disabled access in the set and also meet modern hygiene requirements. There will be no compartments and side corridor and no need for GW toilets at the ends, so fortuitously our and Swindon’s previous modifications are not an issue!
The coach is now owned by the SVR (Holdings) Co and work is being handled by the ‘LNER Coach Group’. Project Leader Richard Gunning has commented that our treatment of the roof in particular saved the vehicle, though regrettably our use of special pressings at the window corners, of which we were so proud, proved to be far less successful, allowing water in which was then retained, leading very quickly to severe rotting of much of the remaining frame. It is being rebuilt with entirely new timber framework rather than trying to use even any of our 1990s replacement material and with the slightly later design of flush windows affording a far superior water seal.

LNWR 6-Wheel Covered Combination Truck No. DM395273 “The Pooley Van”

Owned by 2857 Society from approx. 1976 to 1982

This 6-wheeled vehicle was built at Wolverton to diagram D444A in 1921. The vehicles were equipped with end doors as well as two sets of double doors in each side. They had a high pitched roof, thus allowing the conveyance of fairly tall road vehicles amongst other items, though at some later date the end sections of the roof on our vehicle and some if not all the others were cut down to a flat section. As built the vans were fitted with three double sets of louvres along each side. Vehicles of this type could still be seen in departmental use down to the late 1970s. Our example was first allocated number 12220, then later 4207 and 36912, becoming No. M36912M BR days. Later on it was down-graded to departmental use and numbered DM395273, and it may have been at this time that the louvres were replaced by blank panels and fixed glazed windows. It was latterly used as a mobile workshop by the company Henry Pooley & Son for use by maintenance staff attending to the company weighbridges around the BR network.

DM395273 was purchased from BR in 1973 by the erstwhile Historic Rolling Stock Group (HRSG), an SVR-based group drawing most of its members from Merseyside, and arrived on the SVR on 14th December 1973. Owing to its last use it was always known on the SVR as “The Pooley Van”. Around June 1976 the HRSG generously placed it on loan to the ‘2857 Society’ for use as a workshop, mess-room and, believe it or not, sleeping accommodation. The HRSG had re-canvassed the roof and it was loaned on the basis that the ‘2857 Society’ would have to finish off its restoration, claimed in 2857’s June 1976 Newsletter, without the slightest basis in fact, as being “quite an easy job!” Priority was given to an interior overhaul so that 2857 working members had somewhere of their own to keep dry. It was at around the same time that this CCT was purchased from HRSG by several senior ‘2857 Society’ members and donated to the Society. This generous act was not publicly recorded at the time, probably because the people making the donation were the same ones modestly writing the newsletter, and so we have pleasure in hereby repairing that omission and thanking the donors most sincerely for giving the ‘2857 Society’ a base which became something of an institution at Bewdley in its time! By June 1977 re-glazing, filling and painting to a basic level had been completed.
In October 1981 the ‘2857 Society’ decided to up-grade their workshop, storage and messing facilities and purchased GWR Collet Bow-Ended Coach 5043, which rendered both the ‘Pooley Van’ and the LMS 12-ton box van redundant. These two were sold to the ‘48518 Preservation Society’ based at Buxton on the Peak Rail scheme, arriving there on 19th February 1982, together with an SVR spare Stanier tender which had been stored at Highley. The ‘48518 Preservation Society’ went on to transfer their attention to 8F 2-8-0 No. 48624, while 48518 has since been cannibalised for spares for other locomotives.
In 1991 the CCT was sold again, to the Somerset & Dorset Railway Trust (S&DRT). The body was removed, grounded at Washford and repainted S&D dark blue to become the S&DRT Visitor Centre. It remained in this use until May 2019 when it was decided that it had deteriorated beyond any worthwhile restoration and was sadly scrapped. When the body was removed it was intended that the underframe could be used under S&D 3rd class coach No 4 of 1886, but amazingly at that stage it was found to be the wrong length. The chassis was therefore sold in 1997 and moved to Quainton Road to be fitted under another coach body, LNWR No. 1020, a six-wheel tricomposite lavatory built in 1884. It was still too short for that, by about 3ft, but the job nevertheless seems to have gone ahead. At some point the ensemble moved to Ovington in Essex, but then in 2010 that site was being cleared so it moved on again and is now at Bressingham, under cover, but still (2019) incomplete.

LMS 12 TON VAN No. 98543

Owned by 2857 Society from 1974 to 1982

At the formation of the LMS in 1923, Midland Railway practice predominated, and many of the designs for the new company were in fact up-dated versions of existing MR types. In 1924 no less than 18,264 new wagons were built. A similar rate of construction was maintained until the end of 1930, by which time a total of 106,000 wagons of LMS design had entered service.

The majority of the wagons built by the LMS for ordinary goods traffic had a carrying capacity of twelve tons, and were 17’6″ long over headstocks. They were mounted on four wheels, the wheelbase on those built up to 1930 being 9’0″, thereafter increased in the majority of cases to 10’0″. The third highest total, after coal and mineral types, was achieved by the covered goods vans. These all had steel underframes, the majority having wooden bodies, though some steel bodied examples appeared, while corrugated steel ends also featured on much of the construction. 11,770 covered goods wagons were produced during the period 1924-30.
In December 1974 an observant Bewdley volunteer spotted recently withdrawn van No. DM98543 in Stourbridge yard. It has been suggested that this standard LMS 4-wheeled box van with sliding doors was to LMS Diagram 1676 and built at Wolverton in 1924, and indeed the running number 98543 would tend to support that view. However the LMS numbering seems to have been fairly random and the end diagonal bracing in the centre panel and the complete absence of ventilators points more to diagram 1664. There were 2,544 of this D1664 type of van built between 1924-26 at Derby and Wolverton. Van 98543 was not vacuum brake fitted; vacuum brakes were only fitted to a relatively small number of vehicles.
After purchase of the loco, by the end of 1974 the Society bank balance had risen back up to £300-00 and speedy enquiries revealed BR were asking only £280-00 plus a mere £18-00 to have 98543 delivered the few miles down the line from Stourbridge to Bewdley. This was a pretty extravagant purchase considering it virtually wiped out the funds primarily destined for moving the loco to the SVR, but negotiations were completed by Christmas and the van arrived on 18th January 1975, the first item of Society rolling stock on the SVR. A set of non-authentic steps was added each side to give ground-level access to the doors. Some crude shelves were installed inside and these were rapidly filled with items which had been removed from 2857 in Barry for safe keeping, together with other spare loco parts and the primitive beginnings of our collection of tools, whereupon the shelves promptly collapsed! A new roof canvas was fitted and a sturdier set of shelves was constructed. As it was obviously much more exciting to restore 2857 herself, work on the van was slow and the coat of LMS grey was not applied until around June 1977, when it was reported to look “presentable but still awaited the services of a signwriter”. It was also found to have a cracked tyre, though as a static storage vehicle this was simply ignored!
In October 1981 the 2857 Society decided to up-grade their workshop, storage and messing facilities and purchased GWR Collet Bow-Ended Coach 5043, which rendered both the LMS 12-ton box van and the ‘Pooley Van’ redundant. These two were sold to the ‘48518 Preservation Society’ based at Buxton on the Peak Rail scheme, arriving there on 19th February 1982, together with a spare Stanier tender belonging to the SVR Co, which had been stored at Highley. The ‘48518 Preservation Society’ subsequently transferred their attention to 8F 2-8-0 No. 48624, now at the GCR, while No. 48518 ended up being cannibalised for spares for other locomotives.
The original Peak Rail Society were prevented by BR from accessing the line out of Buxton, so after a number of years, rather than stick it out, they moved to another site on the same railway and sold most of the original site to Buxton Water to be a bottling plant, but retained the station area and approach. By August 1992 Van 98543 was the last vehicle remaining on the site at Buxton and is recorded as having been sold or scrapped, actual scrapping sadly probably taking place later that year.

LMS Hopper Wagon 691804

This wagon was owned by the 2857 Society between 1985 and 2014

The London Midland & Scottish Railway ordered the construction of these 20 ton hopper wagons for iron ore from various independent carriage and wagon builders in the late 1920s and early 1930s. It has been suggested that each batch was built using a different grade of steel for durability comparisons. Wagon No. 691804 was built by Gloucester Railway Carriage & Wagon Company in 1936.

After withdrawal by BR it was sold to the National Coal Board, and used in a small coal yard next to Stockport station. Whilst the 2857 Society is primarily interested in items of GWR interest it was long felt that the opportunity should be taken to broaden the SVR’s magnificent collection of freight vehicles by the addition of vehicles from companies other than the GWR. Consequently when this LMS hopper wagon was spotted by a keen-eyed Society member as the Stockport coal yard was about to close it was purchased by the 2857 Society for the astonishingly low sum of £25-00. It was moved to the SVR by road, though the low loader was inadvertently routed to the valley by a highly scenic route involving steep hills, narrow lanes and sharp corners well to the west of Shropshire before final unloading at Highley Station on Saturday 23rd November 1985.

During 1988 it was given a brake overhaul and the worst of some major dents straightened out. The springs were in a deplorable state, with rusting between the leaves forcing them apart at all angles. It was decided that the cost of a professional overhaul of these springs would easily exceed the cost of the whole wagon, so Society members stripped them down themselves. Once the rust had been removed the spring leaves tended to spring back to their original shape, enabling new central buckles to be made and welded into position. Reassembly was followed by a repaint into LMS grey livery, the job being completed just in time for the wagon to feature in the Anniversary Goods Train organised by the Society to celebrate 2857’s 70th birthday. This goods train was one of the first to be sponsored entirely by photographers, voluntary contributions raising about £455. After cost of coal, publicity etc a small surplus was made, divided equally between the ‘2857 Society’ and the SVR Wagon Department who had given much encouragement and assistance in the wagon’s restoration.

Whilst this hopper wagon featured in several photographers’ freight train demonstrations it never physically earned its keep on the SVR. A complete re-design of the drop door mechanism to allow a controlled discharge was seen as particularly difficult, though not impossible, when trying to retain the authentic appearance of this historic vehicle and unsurprisingly this never got completed.

At the 2012 Society AGM it was mentioned that the ‘Living Ironstone Museum’ (formerly the ‘Rutland Railway Museum’ at Cottesmore) was amassing a collection of ironstone hopper wagons and had expressed an interest in acquiring our LMS Hopper. This announcement was intended as a bit of ‘quirky’ news which might motivate the Society to dig the wagon out and restore it for further SVR use. However, the reaction did not quite go according to plan, as the general consensus was that this was a golden opportunity not be missed; it would let us off having to restore it over again, it would save us trying to engineer a revised door mechanism to make it useful to the SVR, it has never looked ‘authentic’ as a one-off wagon not part of a rake, it would go to a good home where it would be restored, looked after and really appreciated as part of their main collection and it would free up a bit of space on the SVR. All in all it could be regarded as something of a no-brainer and in the end it was concluded that the best option would be to sell the wagon to LIM outright. As regards price, we felt we owed it to the Society to ask a reasonable sum rather than just its book value of £110.68. We calculated the scrap value was now around £1,200-00, but that seemed a bit steep, so a half-way house of £600-00 seemed to us to be reasonable to both parties.

Somewhere around ‘Day 1’ of the proceedings it was discovered that LIM had an early GW ‘Mink’ van for disposal, believed to have been built circa 1916. We informed the ‘813 Fund’ who naturally became very keen to acquire it for the SVR to add to the Fund’s enormous collection of GW wagons. A potential deal was struck for a straight swap whereby we would get paid for the hopper and only have to try and arrange to get it to a suitable location for loading on the SVR. Transport would be arranged by and paid equally between LIM and 813, with the ‘Hiab’ lorry making just one round trip. We therefore approached the SVR Board, through the official internal SVR procedure, with a one on/one off proposal, which looked as if it would work a treat.

Of course, it didn’t. A major problem quickly reared its ugly head in that the hopper wagon was in the PWay siding at Eardington, next door but one to the buffer stop. This location is completely inaccessible for loading onto any lorry, ‘Hiab’ or no ‘Hiab’ and, with the siding almost full of engineering wagons, there was no room to reposition it in the siding next to the platform without a major shunt, rendered impossible with mid-week running season having just started. From then on it was a dispiriting catalogue of lost messages, people too busy for such a trifling task, who’s going to do what and so on until we all felt like giving up!

A ‘Fitness to Run’ exam was carried out in October, when it was found to have water in only one axle box, plus some minor glazing on the pads. It was also found that there was about a foot depth of ballast in the bottom of the hopper, adding a little to the weight. Finally the PWay Department suddenly announced on 18th December 2013 that our hopper was now out and heading for Kidderminster ready for loading.

And so matters rested over Christmas. Then, on 11th January 2014, a tragedy befell the project. Simon Layfield, the site manager at Cottesmore, was out for a Saturday morning bike ride and suffered a heart attack. He was found and taken to hospital where his body recovered but, alas, his brain did not and his full recovery seemed very unlikely. Then, on Sunday 2nd February, Simon passed away, aged only 49. This was appalling news. Simon was a really excellent guy and team leader who will be sadly missed. His father, Peter Layfield, amazingly picked up the pieces from Simon’s notes and organised a new contact for us.

With the transfer of the hopper wagon to Kidderminster the SVR Co. appeared to have completed their part of the bargain, but life is never so simple. To say that there was to be a two-way swap with an early GWR ‘Mink’ van would be an over simplification, as the new arrival had itself to do a further swap! In the SVR station compound which contains the old Bridgnorth bus garage, opposite Kidderminster Signal Box, the wheel-less body of an even older outside framed GW van, dating from around 1880 – the broad gauge era! – had been secreted away. This specimen (No. 37150 for the really hardened gricers out there!) had arrived from Williton on the WSR and has been rebuilt for use as a shed on platform 1 at Kidderminster, a wonderful re-creation of true GWR parsimony when it came to the provision of new buildings! The first task was thus to move this van body to make space in the compound for the ‘Mink’. Because it had to cross London Midland’s car park, London Midland wanted a full risk assessment. The 813 Fund somehow managed to persuade their haulier, Haynes Transport of Pershore, to put together such a document for this operation and so the restored GW van body was finally craned from the car park compound onto its specially prepared brick foundations in the dock platform, on Tuesday18th February 2014, thereby clearing the way for our long awaited wagon movements.

At last the ‘Mink’ no. 95353 was transported the 90 miles from Cottesmore to Kidderminster by LIM’s in-house team from ‘Deeping Direct Deliveries’ on Wednesday 26th February 2014 and was unloaded from the lorry’s trailer, following which our hopper was loaded. The whole procedure went well, apart from a tyre on the trailer which burst with a deafening bang during manoeuvres of the ‘Mink’ van. With the lorry’s immediate return journey back to Cottesmore it was possible to transport the hopper wagon there the same day.

“Sell wagon and allow others to move it from A to B” sounded so simple when we embarked on this marathon in October 2012! We got there in the end and are sure the hopper wagon will be well looked after in its new home where it will make a useful contribution to the Living Ironstone Museum display, while the ‘Mink’ will equally make a great contribution to the SVR superb collection of GW wagons.