Click to enlarge picture

A carriage which has not carried passengers for 50 years has arrived at the North Yorkshire Moors Railway. It is owned by the L.N.E.R. Coach Association which restores the vintage carriages which run on Britain’s most popular heritage railway.

The teak bodied and panelled carriage, No. 23896, was built in 1935 by the Birmingham Railway Carriage & Wagon company to a design of Sir Nigel Gresley, arguably Britain’s most foremost locomotive and carriage designer.
The carriage is an eight compartment vehicle with a side corridor. Each compartment has a separate door. It ran throughout the 1930s, the war and the austere 1950s until it was withdrawn from passenger-carrying service in 1961 after 28 years use.

However, instead of being scrapped, it was earmarked to become one of BR’s most secret carriages as it became part of the Easter Region Control Train. The government had ordered all regions of British Railways to make provision in case of war to ensure it could operate the railway system if the headquarters’ office were put out of action. Each region would have a 4-coach train which could be shunted onto a remote branch line to become the railway’s control. These carriages were converted to form a generator carriage, telecommunications, office and stores.

23896 was extensively altered internally, given a special number – DE321008 – and was painted black with windows whited out. It was kept securely locked and out of public view at Doncaster Carr locomotive depot.

The years rolled by until 1979 when the government decided that all these secret carriages could be dispensed with. The world had moved on – and the carriages were seen as obsolete compared to modern air-braked rolling stock.

Railway preservationists has a field day and many of the 16 Gresley-designed carriages were snapped up. DE321008 was bought by Resco Railways but in 1984, ownership passed to the L.N.E.R Coach Association who moved the carriage to store at Carnforth. A rise in rent has seen this remarkable survivor moved to Pickering where it is to jump the restoration queue in view that it is externally restored in varnished teak.

It will be restored to as-built condition with number 23896 and the LNERCA hopes to have it carrying passengers once more in time for its 80th birthday in 2015.