Tuesday Treasures - February 2025

TUESDAY 25 FEBRUARY

A Special Train

Our Blog this week from the Great Western Trust collection records a special train of 1933 created by Fry’s the famous chocolate manufacturers using adapted Great Western Railway rolling stock, to travel the country.

Yes it was blatant publicity, but with a social agenda, in that according to the official postcard we illustrate it had travelled over 10,000 miles, visited 254 towns, been inspected by more than a million people, and that £5,000 had been collected and donated to local charities. Quite a result.

Not shy to make even greater claims, the postcard states it was ‘Britain’s First Show Train’.

The postcard itself, was ’Issued by the House of Fry, Cocoa and Chocolate Manufacturers, Somerdale in Somerset’, and has images of the short 3 vehicle train, and three interior views of the displays within them. The carriages were two GWR ‘MONSTER’ coded covered vehicles (also used for theatre scenery and even circus elephants), and a clerestory-roofed dining car, painted in bold Royal Blue colours with gold ‘Fry’s Show Train’ lettering. It must have made quite a sight when travelling between stations.

The launch of the Fry’s Chocolate Train at Somerdale in 1933. The ladies in white coats were known as ‘Fry’s Angels’. Photograph reproduced by permission of Bristol Culture, ref P9466

The Railway Magazine of July 1933 included an article about this train, which states the Monster vans were chosen for the liberal head room inside. One became a showroom for Fry’s products, while the second contained a 4.5 kw diesel generator. The dining car was used as a tea lounge and also contained a kitchen and sleeping quarters for the two salesmen who accompanied the train.

The purpose of the train was to exhibit the firm’s latest lines to their trade customers throughout the country, and at each stop a limited amount of invitations to inspect the train were also issued to the public.

The tea lounge with wicker furniture in the former dining car

After the train’s launch on 30 May 1933, The Railway Magazine listed to towns the train would visit between June and September: Hastings, Canterbury, Peterborough, Newark, Mansfield, Chesterfield, Gainsborough, Barnsley, Harrogate, York, West Hartlepool, Bishop Auckland, Durham, Consett, Carlisle, Workington, Whitehaven, Barrow, Kendal, Lancaster, Wigan, Macclesfield, Crewe, Stoke-on-Trent, Hanley, Rhyl, Caernarvon, Colwyn Bay, Chester, Wrexham, Shrewsbury, Oswestry, Leramington, Hereford.

The Trust also holds a splendid quad royal (40 x 50 inches) poster advertising visits to the Fry’s Somerdale factory, which drew great numbers of visitors for many years. The Somerdale factory opened in 1925, replacing factories in the centre of Bristol, and closed in 2011.

The GWR poster in the Great Western Trust collection that features the Somerdale factory. The statue on the left is of Peter Pan and was presented to Fry’s in 1930 to celebrate a company ‘that would never grow old’. After closure of Somerdale the statue was gifted to Children’s Hospice South West

Certainly this is another example of an age long ago which adopted railways to gain potential wider population access to commercial products, and nevertheless demonstrated that Fry’s at least had a social agenda too, given its direct contribution to local charities. £5,000 in 1933 is more like £300,000 now!!

TUESDAY 18 FEBRUARY

Delivering the Goods – Part 8

Continuing our sequence of blogs on this informative subject which in broad terms returned for the Great Western Railway more receipts than passenger traffic, our current blog from the Great Western Trust archive focuses on the illustrated double sided handbill promoting GWR Road-Rail Containers for house removals.

It may look tired, ink stained and creased, but our example was clearly once possessed by a prospective GWR householder customer and is a remarkable survivor.

Whilst undated, it’s circa 1929-1934, given it’s in the era when James Milne (later to be knighted) was the GWR General Manager and the locomotive retains the company’s shield monogram on its tender, that was replaced in 1934 by the simpler roundel design.

The artist’s imagery is necessarily striking even if, as to be expected, it reflects that well-used phrase ‘artistic licence’ – that is creativity beyond probable factual accuracy. A King class loco on a long freight train, is the evidence. Whilst it is correct that such locos certainly headed the express milk tank trains, their use on general freight trains is highly doubtful, except in extreme circumstances, and photos of such events are elusive.

This photograph of the same household removal as illustrated on the handbill was published in the Great Western Railway Magazine’s May 1933 edition

The reverse side of the handbill gives a potential customer the details of the exemplary service the GWR offered, and closes by using another bold assertive statement the GWR had adopted for some previous years ‘GWR The Hallmark of Transport’! Try that slogan with customers of today?

Well, this item, gives yet more evidence of the expanse of goods-related services the GWR provided, and not just to the large commercial companies and industry in general

A household removal at Hanwell, Middlesex, on 20 November 1936. The vehicle is a 6 ton Scammel 3-wheel tractor with a Dyak G Trailer and a 4 ton capacity container

TUESDAY 11 FEBRUARY

Diesel Hydraulic Locomotive Engineering

Countless numbers of photographs, taken officially and by enthusiasts, exist because of the unique BRWR investment in diesel-hydraulics rather than diesel-electrics. Debate will probably never cease about the reasons for that contrary investment decision, the comparative performance of both designs, and the final outcome, but today our blog concentrates on the design detail of one vital assembly, the bogie of a D800 series diesel-hydraulic locomotive, the Warship class.

From the Great Western Trust collection, the illustrated image is that from an official BRWR CME’s Dept, Drawing Office, Swindon, series, Negative E5.150 dated 25 July 1960. Way back from the early days of official Swindon Works photographs, new to service examples of locomotives were photographed and just like this image today, the background was carefully blanked out, in order to concentrate attention upon the object in question.

D800 Sir Brian Robertson photographed by Norman Preedy at Swindon Works on 27 July 1958. The locomotive entered traffic on 11 August 1958

We have chosen this photo image because it is we believe worthy of close examination. Beyond its engineering excellence, in packing into a weight and structurally confined space, it is the construction outcome of a massive amount of design calculations. These would cover both component strengths, weights, optimal locations and crucially, dynamic performance.

D817 Foxhound photographed by Norman Preedy at Swindon Works on 18 March 1960. The locomotive had entered traffic on 9 March 1960 and was one of the exhibits at Swindon on the day that the last steam locomotive built for British Railways, No 92220 Evening Star, was named – 18 March 1960

In our current era of computer aided design and dynamic modelling, we are perhaps relieved of the tedium of repeated handraulic calculations combined with long-gained expert experience inside Swindon drawing office and on the works floor itself, of draughtsmen, foremen and the locomotive running inspectors. Those latter individuals, were the key members of the CME’s design team, as even the cleverest design on paper, had to meet the demands of the operating staff, day in and day out. Their experience of what to observe, and what to avoid, must have been the major ingredient to the inception of any new locomotive design.

We like to think that the photo in question was also a record of the design team’s pride in the final manufactured product.

D801 Vanguard at the head of the Torbay Express, photographed by T B Owen. The locomotive entered traffic on 7 November 1958. The photograph shows her in original appearance, with GWR-style three-digit train reporting number and green livery complementing the uniform set of chocolate and cream coaches. Ten years after Nationalisation, the Great Western spirit was still alive and well on the Western Region

TUESDAY 4 FEBRUARY

The Amateur Railway Photographer

The invention of the camera and then the commercially affordable versions, had a profound impact upon railway enthusiasts, and the wealth of publications that those same enthusiasts now enjoy in their personal libraries would only exist because that invention changed their world.

Today in our Blog based upon the Great Western Trust collection, we reflect upon the relationship between the GWR company itself and one highly acclaimed contemporary enthusiast photographer namely H C Casserley.

We illustrate a remarkable letter to him from the GWR CME’s Department at Swindon, signed on behalf of C B Collett when he was CME and dated 6th April 1927. It refers to Casserley’s letter of the previous day no less, (try that postal speed today?) in which he had penned a reminder that he had not received a reply to his letter of 28 March seeking a shed access pass in order to photograph the last working de Glehn compound locomotive, then based at Oxford shed. How interesting it is, that Casserley’s wide reputation prompted such a helpful reply in which he is informed that the delay in replying to the original letter was that said engine was away under repair at Old Oak Common but would be on shed at Oxford on the coming Saturday preparing to take her train, the 4.20 pm to Paddington! Moreover, he included the very shed pass appropriate to that date, at a charge of one shilling!

Yes of course, we well know that the GWR went out of its way to appeal to ‘Boys of All Ages’ when they published that famous series of books by Chapman, but this letter demonstrates an even deeper willingness to engage with even amateur private individuals. We can only speculate, but it’s likely that the Oxford shed foreman was also informed by ‘higher management’ of Casserley’s intensions so that his visit proved entirely successful!

It is an interesting fact that in their final years of operating service from 1913, probably to ensure they had informed local maintenance staff on shed and trained footplate crews, all three French de Glehn compounds Nos 102, 103 and 104 were based at Oxford. The three locomotives had been bought by the GWR in 1903 and 1905 to compare their performance with the new locomotives being built at Swindon.

From available records, it is evident that the very last one in service was No 104 Alliance which was withdrawn in September 1928 and given that No 102 La France was withdrawn in October 1926 and No 103 President was withdrawn in March 1927, the loco Casserley wanted to photograph was No 104.

The Trust does not have our own copy of Casserley’s images taken on that day at Oxford, but we include a relevant example of that engine when in her final years.

No 104 in her original form with the French boiler. This photograph was taken between entering traffic in June 1905 and 1907 when she was named Alliance

H C Casserley wrote an article in Great Western Echo, Summer 1967 edition, in the series The Man Behind the Camera so we can get an insight into his interest in photography nearly 58 years later:

“I took my first railway photograph not far short of fifty years ago – 14th December, 1919, to be precise – on a dull winter’s day at New Cross shed, on the old London, Brighton and South Coast Railway. A fortnight later, on New Year’s Day, I got my first real ‘scoop’, at Derby, when I found the mysterious new ‘large banking engine’, which had been rumoured for some time, running its trials.

“It happened to be an 0-10-0 locomotive, No 2290, only the second ten-coupled engine to have worked in this country at that time. Fortunately, it was a good sunny day and I was able to obtain a sufficiently good picture for it to be reproduced in the old Locomotive News, certainly the first to be published and probably the first ever taken of this historic locomotive in action.

No 104 was rebuilt with a GWR Standard No 1 boiler in August 1907 and reverted to the French boiler in June 1909. She was given a Standard No 1 boiler again in July 1915, which she carried until withdrawn. This photograph was taken near Appleford, between Oxford and Didcot, while she was hauling a Birmingham to Portsmouth train during the final period she carried the No 1 boiler

“Since that time I have photographed countless thousands of railway scenes, at first confined almost entirely to stationary shots of locomotives but gradually embracing a wide variety of views, including moving trains. I have never specialised in taking pictures of trains on the move, having quickly tired of the conventional full speed shots – unless in exceptionally unusual or interesting surroundings.

“My principal interest has almost always been in the smaller lines and light railways, particularly those of Ireland, and I suppose I shall be rather sticking my neck out if I confess in a Great Western magazine that the GWR has never been a particular favourite of mine. Nevertheless, in varying degrees I liked the locomotives and trains of all the big companies.

“In more recent years I have concentrated on the general view, such as branch line scenes, station buildings and coaching stock.

The sad end of No 104 in the scrapyard at Swindon in 1929

“I have had only three cameras. First a Kodak 3½” x 2½”, which still takes a good picture, then a ‘Popular Pressman’ ¼-plate reflex, and a Leica 35mm which has stood me in good stead since 1936. I have always developed and printed my own pictures.

“I think I am very fortunate in that I was born at just about the right time; early enough to see and appreciate the fascination of pre­grouping days, and to have lived through two intensive periods of railway change and development – the amalgamations of 1923, and later the post-war period of nationalisation. Now that there is so little left worth photographing, I take very few new pictures and, in any case, have no wish to be forever chasing around the country as I did until the onset of dieselisation made this no longer an attraction.”

H C Casserley had been born on 12 June 1903, and he died on 16 December 1991.

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