Scottish Railway Preservation Society Collections pages

BR (LNER Thompson design) Brake Composite coach No.Sc80417E

BR (LNER Thompson design) Brake Composite coach No.80417
In the Carriage Shed, Bo'ness, repainted in grained teak livery. Photograph J.T. Ormiston.

SRPS Core Collection. Acquired 1969. In branch service, 'teak' livery.
Built 1951, R.Y. Pickering, Wishaw. Diagram 360

This non-corridor coach was built for suburban and branch line traffic. It is clearly a Thompson LNER carriage in concept, but the first coaches built to this diagram were not constructed until 1951, when 41 were built for the Scottish Region of British Railways. Post-war carriage design favoured all-steel bodies, but material shortages dictated what was practicable, and this body has a wooden frame and steel side sheets. Compartment interiors are simple, made attractive by the LNER fine series of framed water-colour carriage prints and by oval mirrors.

Most Scottish branch line and suburban services used non-corridor compartment stock such as this. With no corridors or lavatories, such carriages carried more passengers and so were cheaper to build and operate. British Railways also developed Mark 1 designs of non-corridor coaches, which were built between 1951 and 1956. After that date, the introduction of diesel multiple units and suburban electrification meant that no more locomotive hauled non-corridor coaches were required.

Constructed by R.Y. Pickering at Wishaw in Lanarkshire, this coach is one of the last products of the Scottish railway coach building industry. There are 2 first class and 4 third class compartments, and a brake compartment for the guard and luggage, parcels or mailbags. A coach like this could therefore provide, by itself, all the accommodation needed on lightly used branches such as at Killin and Aberfeldy; this carriage was in use at Aberfeldy at the end of that line's existence in 1965. Extensive use of diesel multiple units, branch line closures and the electrification of the Glasgow suburban services rendered the type extinct by 1967.

The carriage is currently painted in imitation teak wood grain, but only ever carried BR maroon livery when in traffic.

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