GWR Route: Banbury to Wolverhampton

GWR Route: North Warwickshire Line

Birmingham Snow Hill Station: gwrbsh1163

View of a six-coach DMU strengthened by the addition of standard coach at the rear on the 5 40pm service to Cardiff General on 12th June 1958. The service called at Stourbridge, Kidderminster, Worcester and Hereford. The strengthening of services for excursions and holiday traffic by utilising older rolling stock was common in the days of steam and it was not unknown in earlier times for non-corridor coaches to be employed which meant passengers had to travel long distances without access to lavatories.

Robert Ferris writes, 'This is a 57ft long, third class, eight compartment, corridor coach to GWR diagram C67 and was one of 155 built at Swindon during 1935. These coaches can be distinguished from earlier types by the provision of one door for each pair of compartments. Despite the large windows, these coaches featured a higher waistline than previous coach designs, resulting in a correspondingly higher window position, which was unfortunate as this limited a seated passenger's view. The livery in this image is probably BR crimson and cream, but could be the deep brown and pale primrose livery that was introduced for Western Region coaches between 1956 and 1962.

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