LMS Route: Rugby to Wolverhampton
LMS Route: Rugby to Leamington
LMS Route: Rugby to Tamworth
LMS Route: Rugby to Leicester
LMS Route: Rugby to Market Harborough

Rugby Station: lnwrrm881b

Close up of image 'lnwrrm881' showing the selection of wagons on view which is of great interest as many of them are quite freshly painted. All four of the newly created ‘Big Four’ are represented but one pre-Group livery can still be found, below right, a 4- plank open lettered LNWR, next to the SR open with rounded ends.

As one would expect, there is a tremendous variety of private owners, with examples from Arley Colliery, Tarmac, Dunlops, Binley Colliery, Whitwell Coal Co, George Harwood, Bletchley & District Co-op, BTH, The Whitwick Granite Co, Roberts of Birmingham, Wirksworth Quarries, Wilson, Carter & Pearson, Cannock Chase, E. Linfield, Carlton, Lee & Jerdein and Sherriff & Sons. The sheds on the left, in front of the Leicester line, may well have housed a wagon works; there was a wagon repair works at Rugby but we have not been able to confirm its location.

The train of laden, recently painted Bedwas Coke wagons looks impressive, although the two cattle wagons, complete with bovine occupants, at the rear slightly less so. The four grimy coke wagons in between cannot be identified. A Royal Daylight tank wagon can be seen on the left, with another tank in the process of being ‘fly shunted’ and consequently blurred by movement, whilst two Pickfords containers sit in LMS open wagons just in front of the coke train.

Finally, something looks a little odd with the shunting process; the coke wagons have been reversed into position on the hump, presumably in readiness for sorting but the rear of the train seems perilously close to the locomotive fly shunting the tank wagon.

The above description appeared in Railway Archive Issue 7.

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