GRCW AND

GREAT WESTERN RAILWAY

DIESEL RAILCARS

Great Western diesel Number 18 - "mascot" of this website - was depicted on card 29 of the 50 strong W.D. & H.O. Wills Cigarette series "Railway Equipment" issued in 1939. The original caption read:

"With eighteen diesel-engine railcars in service and a further twenty under construction, the G.W.R. is the biggest user of these light and speedy units among the home railways. These railcars can be driven from either end, the engines and radiators being arranged along the sides below the body. The types in use by the G.W.R. range from cars fitted with buffets for the fast Cardiff-Birmingham services to a single luggage and parcels carrying type. The railcar illustrated is for branch line or intermediate service traffic. If required it can haul a trailer coach, as shown, or a horsebox. It can also perform light shunting duties."

Although the North Eastern Railway had operated the first petrol electric rail "autocar" between Scarborough and Filey by August 1904, the first diesel mechanical railcar chassis for the Great Western Railway had been built by the Associated Equipment Company in 1933. It was fitted with a streamlined Park Royal body, and with one fifth of the air resistance of a conventional carriage the 20 ton 63’ 7" vehicle could carry 70 Third Class passengers at more than 60 mph.

As well as the cigarette cards, Westward's white metal kit has kept the legend of GWR Railcar 18 alive. Here, a completed example passes a dairy farm on the Bilbrook layout displayed at Cheltenham in October 2006

In 1934 the GWR introduced its railcar to traffic and ordered three more – numbered 2 to 4. Capable of 75 mph, there were twice as powerful at 242 bhp and featured 44 seats, a bar, luggage space and a lavatory. Introduced on the Cardiff-Gloucester-Birmingham route they became so popular ( despite a half crown supplement being charged on Third Class travel) that they had to be replaced with fast conventional trains. Railcar 4 is now preserved at the Steam museum in Swindon.

The third wave of GWR diesel railcars entered service in July 1935. These were again based on AEC built twin engined 242 bhp chassis, but with particularly smooth, curvaceous aerodynamic bodies constructed by Gloucester Railway Carriage and Wagon Company (GRCW). Numbered 5 to 16 and seating 70 Third Class passengers, these survived in British Railways service up to 1960.

April 1936 meanwhile saw GRCW bodied railcar 17 enter GWR service at Southall Depot, not far from where their underframes – and a lot of London buses – had been built by AEC. Unlike the Great Western’s other "flying bananas", this was designed as the World’s first dedicated diesel parcels car. With the same performance as its passenger carrying siblings, railcar 17 could carry letters, parcels and milk churns between London and its suburbs quickly and without shunting. GRCW bodied railcars 13 and 14 were later converted to parcels use as well.

Another view of an 00 gauge 4mm scale model of Railcar 18, this time as seen on the Limesbridge layout displayed in aid of CLIC Sargeant at St Margaret's Hall, Cheltenham in October 2007

History was made again in April 1937 with the arrival of GRCW railcar 18 at Reading shed. Intended for passenger work on the Lambourn branch of the formed Didcot, Newbury and Southampton railway it was the most powerful such vehicle to leave Gloucester’s Bristol Road in the 1930s. Fitted with buffers and designed to haul a tail load, railcar 18 could shunt and pull horseboxes with ease. However, its depiction by W.D. & H.O. Wills with a matching trailer coach was a hint at the diesel multiple unit epoch of the War and post-War years.

A possible new sidelight on Gloucester RCW built Diesel Railcar 18 of the Great Western Railway has been revealed in Issue 49 ( Winter 2004) of the Great Western Railway Journal. As part of a larger – and very interesting – article on Gloucester Horton Road shed it seems that the mascot of Gloucestershire Transport History was based there from July 1936 until May 1937. However, this latter date would seem to contradict some textbooks, most notably J.W.P. Rowledge’s "GWR Locomotive Allocations" (David & Charles 1986) which gives Reading as Number 18s first shed in April 1937. The pioneering railcar was also, according to this book, withdrawn from Reading by British Railways in May 1957, its last GWR shed being Llantrisant in 1947. Can anyone email me and clear up the confusion please?

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