GWR railcars


In 1933, the Great Western Railway introduced the first of what was to become a very successful series of diesel railcars, which survived in regular use into the 1960s, when they were replaced with the new British Rail "first generation" type diesel multiple units.

Design

Bodywork

The original design featured streamlined bodywork, which was very much the fashion at the time. The rounded lines of the first examples built led to their nickname: "flying banana". The preserved W4W is an example of the original, rounded body shape. Later "razor edge" examples, such as No. 22, had much more angular bodywork, yet the nickname persisted for these too.

Heating

An odd feature of these units was the fitting of steam heating to them, which had the power to heat the railcar and another two to three coaches.

Powertrain

An unusual feature was the external cardan shaft drive from the gearbox on the rear of a horizontally mounted engine to road-vehicle style reduction boxes outboard of the two axles on one bogie. Later units had two such engine and drive combinations placed on opposite sides.
Railcars 19-20 were fitted with a separate high-low ratio gearbox on the final drive side of the gearbox. This allowed a top speed of about in high and about in low. Railcar W20W retains this in preservation.

Operational history

The prototype unit, No. 1, made its first run on 1 December 1933 between London Paddington and with a large number of press representatives. Three days later this unit entered public service between, Windsor and.
Soon after this the GWR ordered the next three production units, nos. 2 to 4, which were built with two engines which allowed them to reach a maximum speed of, and included a buffet. These units were delivered in July 1934 and entered service on 15 July 1934 between and. This was the first long distance diesel express service in Britain, and covered the miles between Birmingham and Cardiff in 2 hours 20 minutes. This was intended as a businessman's service, fares were charged at the normal rate, however bookings were limited by the number of seats on the railcar, which was limited to 44.
The next three units, nos. 5 to 7, entered service in July 1935 and had 70 seats. These were used on services between London, Oxford and Hereford. The next batches of railcars numbered 8 to 34 were of various different designs and entered service in batches between 1936 and 1941, two of these were designed for express parcels services rather than passenger services.
The earlier units operated as single railcars. The final four, numbered 35 to 38, were twin coupled units with the driving cabs situated at the outer ends of the set, these were in effect the forerunners of today's diesel multiple units. These had the capacity for 104 passengers, however a standard corridor coach could be installed between the two cars, and this could increase the seating capacity to 184. These were introduced in November 1941 and worked the Birmingham-Cardiff service.

Fleet list

Number RangeIntroducedBuilderEngineWeight SeatsWithdrawnNotes
11934Park Royal1 AEC of 691955Prototype railcar
2–41934Park Royal2 AEC of 441954–1958Buffet fitted
5–71935Gloucester RCW2 AEC of 701957–59Standard single car
8–9, 13–161936Gloucester RCW2 AEC of 701957–609 withdrawn in 1946 after fire
10–121936Gloucester RCW2 AEC of 631956–57Lavatory fitted
171936Gloucester RCW2 AEC of -1959Parcels car, capacity
181937Gloucester RCW2 AEC of 491957Prototype, with buffers & draw gear for hauling vans
19–331940–41GWR, Swindon2 AEC of 481960–6233 rebuilt in 1954 to replace 37
341941GWR, Swindon2 AEC of -1960Parcels car, capacity
35–381941–42GWR, Swindon2 AEC of
+ 		60 + 441957, 1962Power twins with buffet and lavatory 35+36 and 37+38
37 withdrawn in 1949 after fire and replaced by 33

Five of the 38 railcars were destroyed by fires:
Three of the GWR railcars have survived into preservation, as follows:
Vehicle No.BuilderYear BuiltLocationCommentsPhotograph
W4WPark Royal1934National Railway Museum, YorkStatic Display
W20WGWR Swindon1940Kent & East Sussex RailwayUnder restoration at Tenterden since 1983.
W22WGWR Swindon1940Didcot Railway CentreOperational.

Models

manufacture a model of the 1940-style railcar in OO gauge, using tooling acquired in their takeover of Lima. In late 2017, Dapol released an OO model of the streamlined 1936 Gloucester RCW railcars in a variety of liveries and numbers. Graham Farish has produced an N-gauge model, both before and after their takeover by Bachman.