GNR 2701 Composite Corridor

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GNRGreat Northern Railway 2701 CompositeCarriage having more than one class of seating, ie First and Third or latterly First and Standard. Corridor
LNER 2701 20150307.jpg
GNRGreat Northern Railway (LNERLondon & North Eastern Railway) Corridor CompositeCarriage having more than one class of seating, ie First and Third or latterly First and Standard. No 2701
Built By 1922
Status Operational
Number 2701
Other numbers LNERLondon & North Eastern Railway 42701
BRBritish Rail or British Railways E42701E
History
Built Doncaster
Designed By GresleySir Nigel Gresley, Chief Mechanical Engineer (CME) of the London & North Eastern Railway 1923-1941
Type CK
1958 Converted to camping coach
1964 DepartmentalRolling stock used for the railway’s own functions (engineering etc.) rather than for general passenger or goods traffic. use
1994 Entered preservation
2008 Entered service

Carriages

GNRGreat Northern Railway 2701 was built at Doncaster in August 1922 as one of ten carriages to Diagram 164K. It is a Corridor CompositeCarriage having more than one class of seating, ie First and Third or latterly First and Standard. (CK), seating 21 first class passengers in three and a half compartments and 24 in four third class compartments. The carriage was involved in a collision at Retford during its first year of use, but survived to become LNERLondon & North Eastern Railway No 42701, and BRBritish Rail or British Railways E42701E. It remained in passenger carrying service until 1958 when, together with sister carriage No 69, it was converted at Stratford to a camping coach and stationed at Mundsley until closure in 1964. Following transfer to departmental stock its long and varied career on "The Big Railway" ended c1980 at Boston serving as the painter's bothy.

2701 was then purchased by the landlord of the Plough Inn, a few miles away at Swineshead. Following a difficult road transfer involving a lorry and two cranes recounted here it was to be converted to a dining room, but the project failed to gain planning permission. Despite an attempt to preserve it in Norfolk, 2701 was moved to another pub at Stoneyford Lodge in Derbyshire, also with the intention of use as a dining room, but this time the adjacent open cast mine was extended over its intended site.

2701 was purchased in 1994 by The LNER (SVR) Coach Fund from Stoneyford Lodge, with a view to restoration. The move to the SVRSevern Valley Railway was achieved by Allelys with the aid of a lorry, two cranes and some difficulty. A video of the move can be seen here The Big Lift Initially there was some confusion over the identity of the carriage; the SVRSevern Valley Railway Stock Book 9th edition describes the carriage as “Our example, assumed to be No 69…” and lists it as such[1].

Filming took place in October 2000 for an episode of the 2001 TV series “ Off the Rails” featuring Vince Henderson. The restoration of GNRGreat Northern Railway 2701 was one of the items featured. In 2001 the Heritage Lottery Fund awarded a grant of £84k towards the cost of restoration, and GNRGreat Northern Railway No 2701 entered SVRSevern Valley Railway service in July 2008, being formally launched into service on 16th August of that year by Mr Tim Godfrey, a grandson of Sir Nigel GresleySir Nigel Gresley, Chief Mechanical Engineer (CME) of the London & North Eastern Railway 1923-1941. It was declared the overall winner in the Heritage Railway Association Carriage & Wagon competition 2009[2].

In late 2014 2701 received an overhaul and revarnish at Kidderminster Carriage works, being released to traffic in time for the start of the 2015 season.

Early in 2016, a principal supplier of 24 Volt LED lamp bulbs introduced a 40 Watt equivalent "golf ball" style bulb, the installation of which would improve lighting levels and reduce power consumption. A public appeal raised sufficient money to replace all of the lamp bulbs in the LNERLondon & North Eastern Railway carriages of set N. The electrician reports that since the replacement, Set N has required very little top up charging from battery chargers as the dynamos are now able to supply sufficient current to charge the batteries (as they should).

In March 2016 the LNER (SVR) Coach Fund donated 2701 to the SVR Charitable Trust for long term safekeeping.

See also

List of carriages

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References

Railway Heritage Register Carriage Survey
LNERLondon & North Eastern Railway (SVRSevern Valley Railway) Coach Fund

  1. SVRSevern Valley Railway Stock Book 9th Edition
  2. vintagecarriagestrust.org

Links

GNR 2701 on vintagecarriagestrust.org
2701 on lnersvrcoachfund.org.uk