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Title:Standard Railway Wagon Co Heywood Works Review image
Author:David W Tandy
Publisher:Ty Mawr Publications, Holmes Chapel
Format:Book
Subject:Wagons
Category:Detail
Spec:128 pages, 8in x 6in, card-covers, 43 B&W pictures, 67 colour. ISBN: 978-0-9552354-2-9
Publication date:2009
Summary:This books gives details of the various wagons built by SRW at Heywood between 1965 and the works' closure in 1992.
Review:This is a well presented book detailing the products of one of the UK's most prolific and innovative wagon builders. The first few pages outline the history of the Heywood works, focusing on developments from the 1960s onwards (but illustrated with some Victorian-era 'posed workers' photos). The next chapter looks at technical developments, covering bogies and suspension, brakes, discharge mechanisms etc. The bulk of the book is given over to coverage of each type of wagon built at the works. This starts with the Blue Circle Palvans of 1965, referred to as Contract 1. For each type there is a short description and a block of data (numbers, dimensions, etc), while many also have diagrams (from the BR diagram book) and/or photos (most in colour). Quite a few photos are 'ex works' posed shots but this is no bad thing, and they haven't been used elsewhere. A total of 142 contracts were completed before the works was closed in 1992, most of which were for private owners. Perhaps more interesting are the batches of wagons built for export or UK industrial use, details of which are rarely published. The book ends with a table of all wagon builds and a glossary. It is worth mentioning that the author of this book was the Chief Designer at Standard Wagon from 1971 onwards, and the subtitle of the book is 'History, Wagon build and personal experience'. It seems to me that there is very little of the latter in this book, and it is more about 'what' Standard Wagon achieved, rather than 'how'. However, even wagon experts will probably find something here that they didn't know about.
Reviewed:07/12/2009 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)
Page image Cover
Page image Most of the book is about the individual wagon building contracts. Details are given, sometimes with diagrams
Page image Separate photo pages cover most of the contracts, often in colour, and including some interesting views
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