LNER 43612 Open Third

LNERLondon & North Eastern Railway 43612 Open Third
LNERLondon & North Eastern Railway Open Third 43612 (September 2024)
Built By	LNERLondon & North Eastern Railway York
Status	In service
Number	43612
Other numbers	13366, E13366E, 042197
History
Built	1934
Designed By	GresleySir Nigel Gresley, Chief Mechanical Engineer (CME) of the London & North Eastern Railway 1923-1941
Diagram	186
Lot	559
Type	TTO
Length	61ft 6in
Weight	31t 0cwt
Seats	64 third
1979	Preserved on SVRSevern Valley Railway
1996	Entry into service
2022-2024	Overhaul
Carriages

43612 is an LNERLondon & North Eastern Railway GresleySir Nigel Gresley, Chief Mechanical Engineer (CME) of the London & North Eastern Railway 1923-1941 Open Third (TO) coach, or in LNERLondon & North Eastern Railway parlance a Vestibule Third Open Corridor. It seats 64 passengers at tables in one large saloon, with a small entrance vestibule at one end and a larger vestibule with two toilets at the other. These carriages were originally intended for excursion work, but most of them seem to have quickly gravitated into general passenger service. The SVRSevern Valley Railway is home to four examples of this type of carriage the others being 24105, 43600 and 52255.

Service

43612 was built at York in 1934 as part of Lot 559 to Diagram 186. It was renumbered 13366 as part of the LNERLondon & North Eastern Railway's 1943 re-numbering scheme. On Nationalisation in 1947, BRBritish Rail or British Railways initially allocated an E prefix to indicate its LNERLondon & North Eastern Railway origin, with a further re-numbering to E13366E after 1951.

E13366E was withdrawn from BRBritish Rail or British Railways service and transferred to Internal UserRolling stock used for the railway’s internal purposes (stores etc.) at one fixed location. stock in May 1962 as a staff coach, receiving the number 042197. It was subsequently used as an engineers' office until condemned in 1977.

Preservation

The coach was 'discovered' at Norwich in 1977 and acquired by local Brierley Hill soft drinks firm Messrs. Gardner Shaw in 1979, arriving on the SVRSevern Valley Railway on 1 March in that year. Restoration began at Bewdley but was stopped in 1982. It resumed in 1983 after a move to Bridgnorth. By 1985 much work had been carried out on the interior structure, although the coach was "still looking like a train crash from the outside".

The first new teak panels arrived in 1986 and were fitted to one side of the carriage in 1987.. A further supply of teak for the second side of the carriage was acquired from the North Yorkshire Moors Railway in mid-1989, which after fitting allowed the re-chromed sliding window units to be reassembled, glazed and fitted in position. Good progress was also made on the plumbing for the steam heating and toilets, and fitting the roof tanks and brake equipment

After further internal refitting, 43612 moved to Kidderminster at Whitsun 1992 where it was placed on a spare set of bogies while its own bogies were refurbished. This took much longer than intended, so 43612 returned to Bridgnorth later that year on its temporary bogies. It was finally replaced on its own bogies in late 1993.

Following its lengthy and comprehensive restoration, the carriage left the carriage restoration siding at Bridgnorth on 6 September 1996, entering traffic with an inaugural run the following day.

During 2002 the wheelsets were replaced and the paintwork received attention.

• 

  43612 in a service train, March 2015

In 2016 ownership was transferred from SVR(H) to the SVR Charitable Trust. 43612 continued in service, although by 2019 a refresh of the LNERLondon & North Eastern Railway set had seen six other vehicles receive attention with 43612 now looking 'far worse by comparison'. It was withdrawn from service for repairs to the leaky roof and poor bodywork.

The Kidderminster Carriage Works 'Train Repairer' team began an internal strip-down over winter 2019-20, but work was halted due to COVID pandemic in 2020 when staff were initially furloughed and then directed onto compartment stock for covid-compliant use. It eventually entered Bewdley paint shop in January 2022 for general repairs, having been placed accommodation bogies while its own were mechanically overhauled in Kidderminster.

The overhaul involved repairs to the underframe, floor and roof, including a new roof canvas and routine work to ensure that the roof planks are firmly attached to the framework. Some of the large exterior teak panels were also replaced using the last of the SVRSevern Valley Railway's stock of new panels. Internally, all the interior panels and vinyl wall coverings were replaced. The 16 tables fitted as part of the 1996 overhaul were, for reasons of cost, not of a standard railway type. These were life expired and so replaced, this time following the original robust LNERLondon & North Eastern Railway design that has been successfully used since 1997 in the other 3 SVRSevern Valley Railway based TTOs. The 64 seats were completely reupholstered with new 1924-pattern moquette. Final painting and varnishing took many weeks, the lining and lettering being all hand-painted including a third-of-a-mile of straight lines to be painted and gold leaf on the lettering. 43612 was rolled out of the paint shop on 3 July and returned to Kidderminster for final work including refitting the overhauled bogies and braking/heating systems.

With this work complete, 43612 returned to service in September 2024 as seen in the main picture above.

See also

• List of carriages

Notes

References

Links

• 43612 on Railway Heritage Register On-Line
• 43612 on lnersvrcoachfund.org.uk