GWR Route: Banbury to Wolverhampton

Hatton Station: gwrhj3033

Ex-Great Western Railway bogie clerestory coach No W9999W being used to support the Engineering Department at Hatton on Thursday 13th September 1956. Note the stove pipe in the roof at the far end and the outside water tap adjacent to the steps. These two coaches were being stabled on the old turntable siding behind the down island platform.

The clerestory coach was originally built as brake tri-composite coach (diagram E23) number No 729 in November 1892 as part of lot 461, it was intended for branch line passenger traffic where this did not justify the use of multiple single class coaches. This particular coach was 46 feet 6¾ inches long by 8 feet ¾ inch wide and arranged with one first class, one second class, four third class passenger compartments, a luggage area (with double doors on both sides) and a guard’s compartment at the end (which originally had protruding lookouts). In the renumbering scheme of 1907 the coach became No 6729 (where the additional prefix ‘6’ indicated a composite coach). A couple of years later one of the third class compartments was upgraded to second class, only to be downgraded again in 1910 when the Great Western Railway abolished second class.

The coach was condemned in January 1934 and converted to Camping Coach No 9999 in July 1934, which was located at Dawlish Warren for each summer season from 1935 until the outbreak of war in 1939. It had the distinction of having the highest camping coach running number and being the only type D (ten berth) camping coach. During the Second World War all the camping coaches were taken over for various duties and No 9999 was reported at Bristol in June 1943, but had moved to Great Malvern the following month. At the end of hostilities none of the requisitioned camping coaches were considered to be in good enough condition to be returned to camping coach service and in July 1950 coach No W9999W was allocated to the Engineering Department at Bristol Division. The coach was condemned in November 1957 and broken up at Swindon in March 1960.

Robert Ferris

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