LMS Route: Water Orton to Walsall

Sutton Park Station: mrspk1142

A Metropolitan Cammell Carriage & Wagon Company's DMU is seen being tested at Sutton Park in April 1956. The company was formed in 1863 as the Metropolitan Railway Carriage and Wagon Company Ltd, the successors to Messrs. Joseph Wright and Sons of London. Joseph Wright had built coaches for the London and Southampton Railway in 1837 and the London and Birmingham Railway in 1838. In 1845 his company moved their carriage works from London to Birmingham, where adjacent to the Birmingham and Derby Junction Railway line he purchased six acres of meadowland in Saltley. In 1902, they merged with four other carriage and wagon builders to become Metropolitan Amalgamated Railway Carriage and Wagon Company Ltd. In 1926, they had changed their name again to Metropolitan Carriage, Wagon and Finance Company Ltd.

Metropolitan were contracted as a builder of the new tanks for the British Army during the First World War. They had built all four hundred of the Mark V tank and seven hundred improved Mark V* tanks. These were the most developed heavy tank designs to see service in the war. In 1917, Metropolitan Railway Carriage and Wagon Company and Vickers Limited took joint control of British Westinghouse. In 1919 Vickers bought out the Metropolitan shares and renamed the company Metropolitan-Vickers. In 1929, the railway rolling stock business of Cammell Laird and Company was merged as Metropolitan-Cammell Carriage and Wagon Company Ltd, the resulting company being part owned by Vickers and the Cammell Laird group. MCCW also built bus bodies. In 1932, Metro Cammell Weymann was formed by the MCCW's bus bodybuilding business and Weymann Motor Bodies. In the Second World War, Metro built tanks again: including the Valentine tank and Light Tank Mk VIII. Saltley works was closed in 1962 and group administration concentrated at Washwood Heath in 1967.

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