The NER Alphabetical list of Carriage diagrams in 1901, lists :
Type A (with four wheels) dating from 1874, pictured in Plate 1.37.
Type B (six wheels) from 1873. This type has as long history.
Type H initially from 1871. Built with six wheels, included in B in 1901, and lengthened and put on two bogies in 1901, pictured in plate 1.38. This has survived lettered as LNER No.21661.
From 1903, the list of numbered diagrams includes:
Dia.81 dated as from 1903 (with eight wheels). Surviving, lettered as NER No.305
Dia.85 built 1903 (six wheels.) It is this one which interests me most.
The NER then appeared to move to four-wheeled ‘Petrol Inspection Cars’.
No.190 built 1908 – NER Record Plate 1.39
No.191 built 1912
It is Type B and Dia.85 which interest me most. They are quite similar, having a saloon for the ‘officers’, a lavatory, and a compartment for ‘attendants’, with a cooking facility, and usually an open ‘platform’ at one end, with control of a handbrake and a whistle. There is as roof-mounted water tank over the lavatory.
The NERA publication of ‘NER Diagrams of Passenger Train Vehicles’ Book No.2 includes two drawings, both of Dia.85. The earliest is Drawing No.428 Y, marked as ‘Officer’s Saloon No.3271’ for ‘Mr Valentine’, and built in December 1903.
The second is Drawing No. 11397 D, marked as ‘District Engineer Darlington, built December 1903 and Dia.85 revised 1926. This is slightly different in that it shows a ‘wheel guard’ and a folding step under the platform door. The weight in both drawings is shown as 13t 17c. Perhaps no-one re-weighed after the additions! A gas fire is shown in the main saloon.
The drawings are labelled as ‘Westinghouse and Hand Brakes’, the latter mounted on the open platform, and ‘Gas Lighting’. There is a note ‘Whistle Control Handle’ inside the saloon at the platform end. It would seem a logical assumption that the vehicles were intended to be capable of propulsion with the platform end first.
I’m sure, if it were me, I would have preferred a nice steady saloon rather than one of the (noisy? rattley?} Petrol Cars! Perhaps this accounts for the survivals!
As far as my www searches reveal, two Type B vehicles have survived.
No.41/241/269/E900269 currently under re-construction at the Aln Valley.
This is on its ‘original’ six-wheeled underframe.
Paul Bartlet’s website shows ...here...
There are very useful pictures ...here....
No.853/ No.7 at the Tanfield Railway. (I may have ridden on this!)
This is on a replacement four-wheel underframe
Picture ....here...
Type B could be between 24’ and 30’ long. Dia.85 is 32’ over buffer beams.
The major visible difference between the Type B and Dia.85 is that Dia.85 has four windows in the saloon compartment, two either side of a droplight window. Type B only has three windows, with one between the lavatory window and the droplight, and two between the droplight and the platform end. This would be consistent perhaps with the greater overall length of Dia.85.
There is a picture of Saloon No.40, with Dia.85 type windows at the opening of Brampton Junction station in 1913 in a volume of the NERA express. (Mentioned below.)
I have only managed to find one other picture of longer type vehicle.
This has the Dia.85 window arrangement, but instead of the open platform it appears to have another door.
Until the mid-1930’s the saloons seem to have had a special relationship with the 2-2-4 tank engines, (LNER Classes X1,X2, and X3), which were used for little else.
Vacuum ejectors were fitted to the X1 in December 1928; the X2 in November 1929 and the X3s in March 1929 and April 1930. From RCTS part 9B it would appear that they kept their Westinghouse gear as well.
X1 (No.66 Aerolite) was withdrawn in June 1934
X2 No.957 in April 1937
X3 No.1679 in June 1931
X3 No.190 in December 1936
There is a picture (Fig.58) of No.190 with the ‘Hull District Engineer’s Saloon’ circa 1932. This would appear to be Type B, and still has complete upper and lower footplates. No.190’s front buffer beam shows Vacuum and Westinghouse brakes, and a steam heating connection.
No.66 appears to have been retained for use by Arthur Stamer, who retired in 1933.
There is a short article in the NERA Express volume mentioned below, by Geoffrey Lund, referring to the accommodation at the Stooperdale offices for the ‘CME’s private saloon’, for which Aerolite was prepared each day. In the early days of the LNER Mr Gresley was making a tour of inspection and staying with Mr Stamer. Together with both of their wives, they travelled to York in the saloon hauled by Aerolite. Crossing the junctions on the approach to York, the Driver noticed the leading pony wheel axlebox fall off, and the wheel become derailed! Mr Gresley was interested in the nature of the fracture, and remarked that it was a good thing that it had not happened at speed on the main line!
In terms of models, there was/is a D&S kit for a Type B, and some of the excellent modellers on this forum have assembled it. To help with my Dia.85 model I have a series of questions:-
1. Does anybody have access to or know the location of more pictures of a Dia.85 vehicle?
2. When was the lighting/braking/heating changed?
3. Are there any more details of the ‘underside’, in either Gas or Electric eras.
4. When was the rear window seen in some of the above pictures fitted?
5. The end panelling differs between the Dia.85 drawing and the surviving Type Bs. Does anyone have more information?
6. There is an 'inverted U with a stalk' ventilation pipe which is either over the lavatory, or over the position of the gas fire in the main saloon.
Can anybody work out which?
Perhaps when Covid-19 permits I can get to the NERA reading room in Darlington and Search Engine in York I can find some more answers, but in the mean time I just want to get on with my model!
And, of course, does anybody know the type/number of saloon in which Mr Gresley was riding when a wheel fell of the engine!
References:
North Eastern Record Volume 2 (Appendix 2, and plates.)
NERA Express Vol 43 No175 September 2004
RCTS Locomotives of the LNER Part 9B
NER Diagrams of Passenger Train Vehicles’ Book No.2 (published by NERA).
(The pictures shown above are placed in good faith, and I have been unable to find any extant copyright for them. If anybody knows otherwise please let me know and I will remove them.)