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Title: | The Acquired Wagons of British Railways series (2+ books) |
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| Author: | David Larkin |
| Publisher: | Crecy |
| Format: | Book |
| Subject: | Wagons |
| Category: | Detail |
| Spec: | A4, hard-back, 152 pages, numerous B&W photos |
| Publication date: | 2018-? |
| Summary: | A major new series of books examining the wagon fleets that passed to BR upon its formation in 1948. David Larkin does his usual excellent work of combining informative text with interesting photos. |
| Review: | There have been numerous books looking at the coach and wagon fleets built by (or for) the Big-Four railway companies, likewise for those built for BR after 1948. However, the subject of rolling stock that passed from the GWR, LMS, LNER and SR to BR in 1948 was somewhat neglected until 70 years later in 2018. By coincidence, two series of books were started in that year that look set to fill the gap. Coaches were covered in some detail by Hugh Longworth (reviewed here), while the task of reviewing the wagon fleets fell to the prolific David Larkin. Although still mainly pictorial, these new books differed from his earlier series in being hard-backed. Perhaps because of this, they were also rather more expensive, the title reviewed here being £25, compared to £15 each for the last of his Civil Engineers Wagons series. It has not yet been decided how many volumes will be required to cover all of the inherited fleets. The first volume gave an overview of fleet composition and numbering (including tables listing the ranges of P-prefixed numbers allocated to former private-owner wagons). It then covered the brake van fleets in detail. Interestingly, the batches of pre-Nationalisation designs built by BR and numbered in the low B950xxx series are also covered, but I could find no mention of the unique pair of GWR-design brake vans built for the Pontnewynydd line (B950540/B950541). Unfortunately, in looking for these I discovered a mistake, whereby the diagram 1/500 (ex LNER design) brake vans were shown as being B950250 to B950549 and the diagram 1/502 (ex GWR) vans to the conflicting B950542 to B950615 range. Other sources show the former batch ending at B950539, and hopefully this is an isolated error. Volume 2, covering all-steel mineral wagons and loco coal wagons, appeared soon afterwards but I don't think I can justify buying every volume! |
| Reviewed: | 01/10/2019 by Thomas Young (Comments made by others can appear in the notes section towards the bottom of this page) |
| Sample pages: | (Click on any image to view full-sized in a new window)
Volume 1 of this new series appeared in 2018.
The first part of the book gives details of the P-prefixed number ranges allocated to former private-owner wagons. Throughout the book, numbering details are given in yellow boxes, which aids clarity.
The bulk of Volume 1 (112 pages) is devoted to brake vans. Alongside a brief introduction to each batch or design and details of the numbering, most of the content was given over to large, well-reproduced photos. |
| Notes: |
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Volume 1 of this new series appeared in 2018.
The first part of the book gives details of the P-prefixed number ranges allocated to former private-owner wagons. Throughout the book, numbering details are given in yellow boxes, which aids clarity.
The bulk of Volume 1 (112 pages) is devoted to brake vans. Alongside a brief introduction to each batch or design and details of the numbering, most of the content was given over to large, well-reproduced photos.