Mr. Gresley's Carriages

During the Victorian era several of Britain's Railway Companys, including the Great Northern Railway (GNR) relied on passenger carriages constructed of teak, a durable building material that was the cheap and readily available from the Empire. Originally small four or six wheelers, the entire structure was of teak, only running gear and smaller fittings such as door locks being of metal. As varnished teak was attractive and economical, this was the basis for several Railway's liveries, including the GNR. During the 1890 - 1900 era carriages became much larger as the Railways used comfort as a marketing tool, and steel underframes became neccessary for the new eight or twelve wheeled bogie vehicles. Those built by the GNR, at its Doncaster works, had curved ends and "Pullman" type gangways, but "clerestory" roofs. During 1905 Mr Nigel Gresley was appointed Carriage and Wagon Superintendent of the GNR, and almost immediately introduced the characteristic eliptical shaped roof with domed ends, a style that endured until teak became unavailable during the 1939 - 45 war. This was despite the GNR amalgamating (an event known as "grouping") at the end of 1923 with several other companys to become the London and North Eastern Railway, of which Gresley became Chief Mechanical Engineer.
As previously mentioned, the GNR finished its carriages externally in varnished teak livery. This was a dark shade, and the mouldings were picked out (or "lined") with a 3/8" wide yellow line edged with 1/8" blue lines. Vertical lines above the waist terminated top and bottom in arrowheads. Running numbers, class descriptions and the company's name were applied in gold leaf letters shaded in blue. Following grouping, the LNER adopted the same livery but with a simplified scheme of lettering and substituted red where the GNR had used blue. Gresley carriages were then built at several other works, and were generally distinguished when new from the Doncaster product by a lighter finish to the teak. Subsequent works attention at Doncaster would result in the teak becoming the darker shade! Internally the GNR, and the LNER prior to about 1934 used a combination of brass fittings with varnished timber and painted panels to produce a pleasing interior. Later Gresley carriages followed the then current fashion by making much use of aluminium or "Bakerlite" fittings, and having "Rexine", a coloured resin coated fabric applied to most of the interior surfaces. The Rexine was removed during the early 1950's, being replaced with variously coloured paint.
Following the 1939 - 45 war, during which the finish on virtually everything including Railway rolling stock became very tatty, the teak carriages lost their lining but retained varnished teak livery. Sir Nigel Gresley died during 1941, and his successor Edward Thompson ordered a huge re-numbering scheme which took place during 1946. The Railways were nationalised at the end of 1947, and from mid - 1948 onwards all carriages were painted in the new British Railways' (BR) livery (carmine and cream for corridor carriages) as they became due for works attention. The dates of particular repaints are unknown, but very few teak carriages remianed after 1953. Many exterior teak panels were lost during the BR era as it was found expedient to replace them with plywood. The carmine and cream livery was soon found to be expensive to keep in good order and from 1956 onwards a dark maroon livery was used. Most wooden bodied passenger carriages were withdrawn from passenger service by 1964, but a few found other uses which enabled them to survive until preservationists were able to rescue them.

Created on by: Dave Rowley, June 8^th 2001