The LNER Encyclopedia

Can anyone please identify this carriage, believed to be photographed at York c1966? And if you can, what might be the legend on the side?

TIA.

Possibly MO(BILE WORKSHOP)? One or two of my pictures show a GC 'Barnum' carriage at Grantham in the early '60s which had that wording on the body. (It was the former E5666 which in the 1950s became DE320709, a mobile workshop based in the Peterborough area. Preserved as part of the NRM collection, it is currently on loan to the Great Central Railway Rolling Stock Trust and is kept at Ruddington.)

... or maybe MOBILE something else?

Looks like an inspection saloon to me, with those windows in the end, and probably ex-GNR as well - it looks very like ex-Invalid saloon 3087. Could it be the Family Saloon now at Jesmond?

60044 wrote:Looks like an inspection saloon to me, with those windows in the end, and probably ex-GNR as well - it looks very like ex-Invalid saloon 3087. Could it be the Family Saloon now at Jesmond?

The windows at the end are much deeper and there's no gangway connection, in fact the end appears to be flat rather than bowed, so as you say much more like an Inspection Saloon and probably a depot conversion to one rather than by the C&W types.

Most ex-GNR carriages had toplights to the doors rather than vents and the experts in the GNRS believe it to be an LNER vehicle, having also discarded your theory.

It was a standard TK converted in the late 50's/early 60's for route learning. There is a photo in an old copy of BackTack, but don't ask me which because it will take days to find it. IIRC the branding on the side read 'Mobile Instruction Coach'

Sounds extremely plausible - thanks very much Bill.