Rolling Stock For Sale

Could the answer to the questions that you have posed be that even enthusiasts later than the "Ian Allen generation" are looking for more than a "standard 4 + Mk 1s experience, and that restoring older stock gives a heritage railway more interesting stock? I could foresee a situation where wooden coaches become easier to maintain, in some ways, than Mk 1s and there may be a case for scrapping Mk 1s currently in use of favour of restoring wooden bodied stock. Beclawat window frames, for example, have a nasty tendency to break when removed to deal with the corroded steel they are attached to and I shudder to think what a new casting would cost. Railway preservation is not necessarily about cost, though and whilst railways rely on volunteer support to keep their coaching stock fleets restored and maintained it will have to be recognised that those volunteers may well have interests beyond Mk 1s You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink! If I went to Pickering and was told I had to work on Mk 1s rather than teak carriages then I woldn't bother going.

 

This one I assume?

http://www.cs.rhrp.org.uk/se/CarriageInfo.asp?Ref=518

Tom

 

and the famous train was ?

 

I’m wondering if someone’s trying to up the price by making out it was part of an event that happened 60 years ago?

 

I spend a good deal of my time restoring wooden bodied carriages & waggons, and I don't think I would be as interested in Mk1s ...
{Effectively, I'm a C&W dept without a railway}

 

Apologies.
Didn't read other entries properly.

 

I too have not been able to find any other 'preserved' Southern Railway Royal Mail vans.
SR 'took over' two Travelling Post Office services - one each from LSWR and SECR days - so it was nowhere near the volumes of the LNER & LMS.
Before WW2, only eight Royal Mail vans (four sorting vans and four tender vans) were constructed at Eastleigh C&W to replace the pre-Nationalisation vehicles. The survival of three seems to be remarkable.
The usual offset gangways were installed, of course, so no miscreants could access them if they were coupled to normal passenger stock.
Both types were based on Maunsell designs - well, actually, I suspect his draughtsman Mr Lines should really claim the credit.

 

I’ve always wondered why the gangways were offset! Now I know, as ever everyday’s a school day on here

 

I believe they didn't bother with offset corridor connections for the later BR Mk 1 versions of Royal Mail vehicles.
That difference was limited to, I think, pre-nationalisation vehicles.

 

Not strictly true some of the early Mk1 TPO carriages were built with offset gangways. They were later converted to centre.

 

Thank you for the clarification.

 

https://charterhouse-antiques.com/wagon-looks-to-roll-on-to-pastures-new
£5,000 to £7,000 for a Vanfit (?) body. Can't make out a number and the location of Frome does not throw up any reference to this van body when searching the VCT database.
Looks to be in reasonable condition - having been kept undercover for decades apparently.
The wooden panelling sides/doors/roof will have dried out a lot so not sure what might happen if it gets wet outside after purchase.

 

There were indeed just those three. But maybe now only two. After advertising POS 4922 informally for 30 years, and formally for 9 months, we (Bluebell) sold it last December to someone we'd understood was going to use it for filming work. However it is possible it may have been cashed in for scrap by the new owner. https://www.bluebell-railway.co.uk/bluebell/pics/tpo_4922.html

 

A shame if so. What really should have happened is "someone" should have got all three of them together and done something similar to the LNER set at the GCR. Granted, that hasn't run for a while now, (even the replacement Mk.1 set hasn't run since before Covid), but it did run for many years and the spectacle always pulled in the crowds at galas. That in itself was always sufficient justification for running it, even in pre-double track days when it effectively lost a passenger train path. I feel sure that one of the Southern-based heritage railways could have found the location and means of showing off a similar spectacle, had the will been there.

It will be a great shame if the remaining two (maybe still three) vehicles are lost.

EDIT: Just realised the SR vehicles weren't fitted with traductor arms and nets, so perhaps slightly less of a 'spectacle'. Nevertheless educationally important, just perhaps a little harder to sell the vision to a railway's management... :-(

 

Without that spectacle, they are three long vehicles to store, just in case on that one rare weekend in a millenium they are relevant to what's going on. Better kept waterproof, and used as stores or a society shop, rather than being left to rot.

 

Remarkable. Used to be had for £50 delivered. Makes me regret the rotten one we once torched to salvage the steel for scrap !