Fitted brake vans

[Mike Parkes]

is the LNER one (37-527) kosher with number 260922?

The upright vac pipes are correct for LNER ones.

[muggins]

Thank you, sir.

It's amazing what I didn't know about 20T brake vans ...

[Bigmet]

... is the LNER one (37-527) kosher with number 260922?

It falls within a number range for a batch of 50 ordered on Darlington in 1943, so should be OK.

...It's amazing what I didn't know about 20T brake vans ...

You will have a goods guard up next telling you how awful they were to ride in. The LNER design was perpetuated (with small modifications such as the extended footboards) by BR, because it was cheapest to construct. But the ballast weights at the vehicle ends all too frequently made for a 'nodding donkey' ride, and the through draught to which they were prone made for great discomfort in the colder half of the year. (BR might have taken a leaf out of SR's book and provided brake vans on the coach bogies from the pre-group stock which were going to shortly be scrapped, to provide something better for faster freight services.)

[muggins]

...You will have a goods guard up next telling you how awful they were to ride in.

At least I have heard about that being the reason why sometimes years ago on the ECML I'd see two of them on the back end of a long train!

[gppsoftware]

A couple of 'exceptions to the rule' were the two brake vans built to the same design which had full vacuum operated brakes, yet were never owned by BR. These were of course, the two built for the Longmoor Military Railway.