About this Drawing

This is an attempt to create a realization of what carriage number 163 looked like when in service. It has been based on a general arrangement drawing at a scale of 1:12 showing a date stamp from the Chief Mechanical Engineer & Drawing Office, dated 16th January 1936. [Note: 1936 is only the print date – the drawing was produced in 1905 and the tracing was almost certainly made some time around that year.] This also bears a hand-written inscription ‘R/001 1(?)84/007’ and ‘FRAME 3B’, the latter relating to the microfiche copy it was. All measurements on it are in imperial.

Carriage no.163, from the second batch from Brush, had been earmarked for restoration by the London Underground Railway Society in the 1970s and the metal framework later coated with a bitumastic black paint to protect it. At some point it was moved to the Electric Railway Museum in Coventry and still had its sliding doors in place at one end. It was retrieved from there by the London Transport Museum soon after October 2017. Though in poor condition it had retained one door canopy. The chassis was largely intact, though the bogies and wheels were long-since gone. It was taken to London Underground’s Neasden depot.

The LT Museum had been asked to remove it from Neasden in early 2021 and investigated its restoration. The conclusion of the consultants was that it had deteriorated well beyond any practical rescue and so the Museum had it 3D scanned to record as much information as possible.

On 18th February of the same year I was asked if I could produce a two-dimensional scale drawing of the car, to accompany the 3D scan.

Leading C&SLR historian Printz Holman and I visited Neasden depot on 16th April 2021. I took 133 general and close-up detail photographs, as well as a few measurements to use as a check against the general arrangement drawing.

Having interpolated as much as I could from the evidence, inevitably several imponderables emerged. A second visit on 30th April to try and resolve these resulted in a further 107 photographs being taken, and a third on 11th May. On 17th May the carriage was tipped on its side and a fourth visit made on 21st May to examine and photograph the underside of the chassis. The orthogonal drawing that accompanies these notes are the result.

Source Interpolation

Carriage 163 was from the second batch from Brush, though the few photographs found are from the first.

When photographed at Neasden depot the carriage was in very poor condition. The flitch metalwork was mostly intact, though that for the doorway frame ends was not accessible to examine their construction. Most of the teak outer mouldings were missing and the surviving window frames heavily deteriorated. All four doors were absent.

Realization Reference Booklet

This contains selected example photographs and other sources used to make decisions on points of detail that enabled this drawing to be created. The booklet should be consulted in connection with the Reference Numbers in blue blocks on this drawing.

Notes

AIR TANKS: auxiliary air reservoir tanks were fitted to each carriage for the Westinghouse braking system. They were recharged with air from the locomotive. The two metal loops that held the auxiliary tank are shown here on the west side, below the fourth bay from the left; the tank and associated pipework have been omitted owing to insufficient detailed information being available, but see References 95, 96, 97 and 98.

BOGIES: these have been interpolated from the general arrangement drawing and one contemporary photograph. They have been included in order to put the body into context. Some details have been omitted for clarity, or where the details were unclear. It was not possible to examine a real bogie as none are known to have survived; see References 105 and 109.

BOLTS AND FIXINGS: these have been depicted where they were particularly structurally significant to understanding the construction methods used; others have been omitted as they would overwhelm the drawing.

BRAKES HOSES AND PIPES: hoses carried compressed air from the locomotive and across the gap between the carriages. The hoses fed metal pipework that generally passed along the full length of the roof of the carriage. Junctions in the pipe took air to the brake equipment beneath the chassis, passing down the carriage ends in the space that remained beside an open doorway or down the side of the body, crossing windows by being attached to the outside of a vertical window frame. Isolation valves and guard’s brake valves were fitted in various positions on carriage ends. All of these have been omitted in absence of any detailed images or clear evidence of the exact route that they followed, but see Reference 109.

COLOURS: the carriages were probably brown, though what shade is not known; the teak has been depicted in a mid brown and the metal panelling in a darker shade.

DOORS: the lower runners may have been altered after withdrawal from service; the mechanism by which they worked has been inferred from a photograph taken when at the Electric Railway Museum; the handles, retaining hasp & staple and lock have been largely interpreted from the general arrangement drawing.

ELECTRICAL FEEDS: the sides of the coaches were identical other than one side (depicted here) having six junction boxes on the trunking for interior lighting; four of the boxes on each side match the position of the lights above the seating, while the additional two boxes align with the central ceiling lights.

FLOORING: the 1-inch layer of lito-silo (largely composed of whiting, cork dust, iron oxide and cement) has been shown between the metal floor and metal door tread. 32 wooden slats ran along the length of the carriage, laid on top of the lito-silo, in turn laid on top of the metal corrugated under-floor, fitted to the top of the chassis beams. The slender photographic record suggests the wooden slats might have been a later addition.

FRAMEWORK: in the absence of any information the skeletal structural beams have been depicted as grey; beam connections and associated brackets have been shown, where established; those at the corners have not.

GATEMAN’S PLATFORM BETWEEN CARRIAGES: as depicted here at the south end. This type of platform was placed between two carriages that were coupled together to allow passengers to enter or exit from a train. The platform was secured in two places being connected to a swivel point on the bogie extension of each carriage. In operational service, the platform would follow a path through a curve, with each end being guided by the bogie to which it was connected. The platform could only operate if correctly secured between two coupled carriages; it could not be run in service if fixed to a single carriage as it would be unsupported at one end and there would be no control over its movement. Folding ‘Bostwick’ gates were secured within a frame mounted on the platforms. These were covered by a curved roof that spanned much of the gap between the carriages to prevent the electrical cabling and air hose from hanging down into the space occupied by passengers. This area has been added from the general arrangement drawing (Reference 105) though without the hoses.

GUARD’S END PLATFORM: as depicted at the north end. Half-length platforms were fitted to the outward facing end of the carriages at the front and rear of each train. As carriage no.163 did not occupy an end position, it did not carry an end platform. These details have been copies from the general arrangement drawing for reference purposes only (Reference 105).

LOWER OUTER PANELLING: the general arrangement drawing  notes these as 1⁄16-inch steel.

ORIENTATION: carriages were not turned in service on this predominantly north-south railway; elevations in this drawing are described by compass point.

PASSENGER NOTICES: contemporary photographs show some of these, though not at all clearly; some have been added from this slight evidence.

ROOF PANELLING: the general arrangement drawing notes this as 16SWG (Standard Wire Gauge).

ROOF STRAPS: these were tucked behind the bevel of the horizontal teak mouldings.

WOODWORK: it has been possible to understand much of the external and internal joinery but not all of it; moulding joins have been established from the few that remain, though not all were consistent; moulding fixing holes were also not consistent but have been replicated where possible.

WINDOW FRAMES: though very few remained, there was evidence a spacer fillet surrounding all four sides of the wooden outer frames; these would not have been visible as the teak horizontal and vertical mouldings masked them outside, and hidden inside behind the window ledge and other wooden trim.

WINDOW GLASS: the general arrangement drawing notes these as ¼-inch plate.