SECOND HAND N GAUGE MODELS #7 -- GWR RAILCAR W32W [Brunswick Green Livery]

GWR RAILCAR W32W
Ever since I was young had a fascination with the GWR railcars, never saw them running in their heyday, though that would have been fairly local to myself out of the Southwell yard, and always wanted one for my N Gauge layouts as a lad. I have picked up a few different liveries in OO Gauge but the N Gauge ones remained out of reach. 

Having been looking for a GWR Railcar in N Gauge it took us up until last year to finally obtain one, and having got one I almost immediately picked up another in traditional GWR Choc / Cream too. A happy lad indeed. Boxed and appeared in good order, the seller had no idea if it was a good runner or not, so with a small amount of fear I got the smaller test track wired up and gave it a nudge, to my delight there was movement even at slow speed, but that was all it had. Not a problem, we got the body off and immediately checked connections and current. Then a small clean down, light amount of lubrication applied (I use sewing machine oil for my models, seems to work fine) and back on the test track, success.

N Gauge model by manufacturer Graham Farish
W32W GWR Railcar in Brunswick Green livery with 'whiskers'.

GWR RAILCAR HISTORY

"This example, with its angular and wedge shaped ends, was constructed at Swindon, the last of the fourteen built there in 1940 and was based at Worcester in the mid 'fifties, one of six there in 1956, the most to have been allocated to one depot at that time although both Reading, Southall and Bristol all had five each on their respective books."

Noes 19–33 1940–41 built at Swindon

All ex GWR railcars were retired in 1962

The prototype unit, No. 1, made its first run on 1 December 1933 between London Paddington and Reading with a large number of press representatives. Three days later this unit entered public service between Slough, Windsor and Didcot. Soon after this the GWR ordered the next three production units, nos. 2 to 4, which were built with two engines (instead of one) which allowed them to reach a maximum speed of 80 mph (130 km/h), and included a buffet. These units were delivered in July 1934 and entered service on 15 July 1934 between Birmingham Snow Hill and Cardiff General. This was the first long distance diesel express service in Britain, and covered the 117.5 miles (189.1 km) 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 (nos. 17 and 34) were designed for express parcels services rather than passenger services.

RAILCAR PRESERVATION

The fleet were retired in 1962 but three survive in preservation: AEC/Park Royal built No. 4 at National Railway Museum and Swindon built numbers W20 / W22 on the Kent & East Sussex Railway and at Didcot respectively:

Vehicle No.	Builder	Year Built	Location	Comments	Photograph
W4W	Park Royal	1934	National Railway Museum, York	Static Display
W20W	GWR Swindon	1940	Kent & East Sussex Railway	Under restoration at Tenterden since 1983.
W22W	GWR Swindon	1940	Didcot Railway Centre	Operational.