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INDEX D

This index alphabetically lists references in books to private owner railway wagons by company name. 

Each company is listed by an abbreviation of the the book’s author and its page number. Coal Merchants who ran wagons are also included. Most of the references include either a photograph or drawing of the wagon.

It is not intended to be a comprehensive list of every private owner wagon built, merely of those that have appeared in books since 1969.

Where there is only a description of the wagon or notes about the owner, but no photograph or drawing, the reference has * next to it.  Some of these - IP1 / 147 particularly - are as little as just a name with no location or other details.

Locations of the companies are included unless it is obvious from the name on the wagon. If there is no location listed, particularly with the Welsh wagons, the name is the location. Please check with an atlas.

In Bill Hudson’s first two books (BH1 & BH2), his index lists wagons by plate (ie photo) number rather than page. In this index, they are by page number. Wagons shown in the prefaces are listed by Roman numerals, eg BH2/vi. For his third & fourth volumes (BH3 & BH4), there are no page numbers so the references are to plates not pages.

Richard Tourret's books are listed as RT, then RT2.  There is no RT1.

Entries are usually by surname or place, for example ‘City of Nottingham’ is under ‘N’ not ‘C’ (but North, South, East or West are under N, S, E or W.) If there is likely to be any uncertainty, the name may be listed twice, eg, Griffith Thomas is under ‘G’ and ‘T’. ‘The’ at the start is ignored, eg ‘The Lothian Coal Co. Ltd’ is under ‘L’.

Comments in [ ] brackets are added by Joe Greaves for clarity (he hopes!) Names in Bold square brackets (eg [‘ROSSINGTON’]) refer to the actual lettering on the wagon compared to the company name (in this case Rossington Main Colliery Co. Ltd) but this hasn’t been done in every instance.

Every book listed above is an essential purchase for any modeller, historian or enthusiast with an interest in the thousands of privately owned wagons in use on the railways from 1853 to 1948. I hope the following notes will give the user of this index a better idea of what each of them covers.

All the books by Ian Pope and Keith Turton (which are published by the Lightmoor Press) contain far more than just photos of wagons with some basic details. Both authors try to put the wagons and owning companies into the context of the times in which they were built and used, and these books will be of value not only to enthusiasts and modellers, but also to social historians and in many cases family historians too. They are now the definitive source of information about private owner wagons and coal merchants before 1948.

All Keith Turton’s books also give details of any available models of the wagons described, an enormously useful but potentially very expensive feature for those of us of a weak will!

Bill Hudson’s Volumes 1 – 4 primarily have a detailed introduction and are then large photograph albums laid out in regional order, with (usually) one wagon to a page. There are very informative captions with history, dimensions, dates and specifications which will be of use to modellers and historians alike.

His 88 page 1996 Oakwood Press book is an excellent overview of the history and constructional details of private owner wagons with some splendid photos, drawings and statistics and could be considered the prototype of the current Lightmoor series. There are a number of wagons not featured elsewhere, although the page numbering is ‘economical’ to say the least. It is also the book which I had the most difficulty obtaining, but it was worth the trouble when I finally located one.

John Hypher & C & S Wheeler's book is a broad history of the BRC&WC which has a number of photos of wagons but with fairly brief captions and no dimensions or livery details.  Most of the photos are the same as those in other books listed along with the JH references, but there are one or two wagons not featured elsewhere.

Peter Matthews’ book is similar to Bill Hudson’s Oakwood volume but in just 48 pages and being 23 years older, has less information in it. It is still well worth buying however, for example on pages 20 – 23 are drawings showing the differences between pre-1923 and post 1923 RCH wagon specifications.

Keith Montague’s book has a very good history of the Gloucester Railway Carriage & Wagon Company and two excellent indexes by both wagon name and location. There are a few drawings, and more than 665 photos, nearly all of which have basic dimensions and livery details. It’s worth noting that a lot of the photos used in this book also appear in the others as they are the official GRC&WC views of their products.

A. G. Thomas’s three books, each of around 40 pages, have no page numbers and are simply accurate first hand sketches of wagon sides with basic livery and location notes, typically five to a page. There are no dimensions given and the company names run in alphabetical order, but there are some rarities here that are not featured anywhere else. I have not tried to make up page numbers for them in this index as you shouldn’t need them.

A.J. Watts’ splendid 190 page volume, published by the Historical Model Railway Society in 1998, is similar to the Lightmoor standard and layout. Pages 182 – 183 contain a detailed listing of the amalgamations of hundreds of collieries into dozens of larger companies during the late 1920s up to 1937. These are not indexed here but will be of interest to students of the coal industry.

Chris Sambrook’s marvellous book, again from the Lightmoor Press, is the definitive work on its subject. For this index, the wagons listed are mainly shown in photos from the makers’ advertising material so there are few dimensions or details, but that is not the reason for the book and they are included here for completeness.

Bob Essery & friends’ 1969 144 page work is an overview of goods wagons just as its title suggests, so it includes both private owner and railway company wagons. Subsequent research will perhaps have superseded some of the information, but this is the father of all the books indexed here and is certainly still worth hunting for.

Oil On The Rails (HMRS 1999) covers the history of the oil companies, their depots and the wagons they used both pre and post Nationalisation.  There are a good number of tanker photos ( plus many early road-going tanker lorries ) and tables of details and a number of drawings of tanker wagons old and recent, all of which make for an interesting and useful book.

Mike Lloyd’s excellent book for the Welsh Railways Research Circle has a mixture of photos, information and drawings for most of, if not all, the owners in its area. It covers owners domiciled on the system as well as those from further afield whose wagons were used on it. It was a most illusive book and consequently very expensive when one finally turned up.

Coal Trade Wagons has no photographs but dozens of very detailed drawings of wagons with history and statistics for the owners. There is a fascinating and very detailed history of private wagon development, use and movement too. It was almost impossible to find and then very expensive, but worth it.

Richard Tourret’s 64 page softback British Railway Private Owner Tank Wagons is the only book here to feature colour photographs and has a nicely varied selection of wagons, small and large from around 1881 to 2000.

Finally, his monumental 304 page Petroleum Rail Tank Wagons of Britain is the definite book on the subject, but it also covers those used for many other liquids from 1870 to 2009.  With 688 photos and 125 drawings and sketches, it is to the same standard as the Lightmoor books and of similar layout. There is a potted (but detailed) history for each company and its wagons. At £33.00, it’s expensive but well worth every penny. I have included details of all the owners shown in the book in this index, right up to 2009. The book has no index of its own, but it runs in alphabetical order so this is a minor point.

My intention is to allow the index user to find published details of any private owner wagon knowing just the company or owner’s name. I hope it will also help family historians to find details of relatives who were coal merchants. Perhaps it might be of use to model manufacturers too. I know there are several wagons here I’d love to see in 4mm scale ready to run form.

Many of the older books listed are long out of print, but the compiler has managed to buy copies of all of them via the internet and from specialist booksellers and auction sites during 2009 – 10. It is suggested that anyone interested try the same method to obtain them, or ask at their local library of course.

Please be careful before buying any of the books on the strength of a reference marked with an asterisk [*]. Some of them are still detailed paragraphs, but others are literally the owner’s name and nothing else. If there is no asterisk, you will almost certainly find a photo or drawing of the wagon on that page, but I can’t accept responsibility for disappointment caused by errors or omissions.

Joe Greaves also welcomes corrections and amendments