The fleet of Great Western Railway wagons was both large and varied as it carried the wide variety of goods traffic on the Great Western Railway (GWR) in the United Kingdom. This was the railway company that operated for the longest period of time in the country (from 1838 to 1947) and covered a large geographical area that included big cities such as London, industrialised areas including the West Midlands, areas of coal and mineral mining such as South Wales, and Somerset and other important agricultural districts. In 1902 the company owned 59,036 wagons, and by 1926 this had risen to 88,580.
The first wagons were just open boxes but covered vans were added from the 1860s and a wide range of special wagons were eventually built to handle many specialised traffics. Towards the end of its existence these were all painted in a grey livery, but before that both black and red had been used at different times.
Design development
Most early vehicles were open wagons with four wheels, although a few six-wheeled vehicles were provided for special loads. Covered vans followed, initially for carrying cattle but later for any kind of goods that needed to be protected from the weather during transit. The first bogie wagons appeared in 1873 for heavy loads, but bogie coal wagons were built in 1904 following on from the large four-wheeled coal wagons that had first appeared in 1898. Rated at , these had been twice the size of typical wagons of the period, but it was not until 1923 that the company invested heavily in coal wagons of this size and the infrastructure necessary for unloading them at the railway-owned docks; these were known as "Felix Pole" wagons after the GWR's General Manager who promoted their use. Container wagons appeared in 1931 and special motor car vans in 1933. Indeed, special wagons were built for many different commodities such as gunpowder, china clay, motor cars, boilers, long girders, sheets of glass, cattle, fruit and fish.
When the GWR was opened no trains were fitted with vacuum brakes, instead handbrakes were fitted to individual wagons and trains conveyed brake vans where guards had control of screw-operated brakes. The first goods wagons to be fitted with vacuum brakes were those that ran in passenger trains carrying perishable goods such as fish. Some ballast hoppers were given vacuum brakes in December 1903, and some general goods wagons were constructed with them from 1904 onwards, although unfitted wagons (those without vacuum brakes) still formed the majority of the fleet on 1 January 1948 when the railway was nationalised to become a part of British Railways.
In common with most other British railways, goods trains were coupled together by a large three-link chain between sprung hooks on each wagon. Some vacuum-braked wagons were fitted with screw couplings which could be tightened so that wagons did not bounce back and forwards on their buffers, in which the middle link of the coupling was a threaded bar with a handle to rotate it. More common on GWR wagons was an instanter coupling, in which the middle link was specially shaped so that they could be shortened when in vacuum-fitted trains.
Livery
Wagons were painted brown in the early years of the GWR, but this changed to red before the end of the broad gauge in 1892. A dark grey livery was introduced about 1904 and continued to be used until 1947.
The owner of the wagon was identified by 'G.W.R' painted in small letters on the underframe or bottom plank of the body. When wagons were painted red many were fitted with cast iron plates instead. From 1904 the initials changed to a large () painted 'GW' which was reduced to just in 1920. About 1937 the design returned to just a small 'GW' painted just above the wagon's number.
Types of wagons
Opens
The earliest wagons were of an open type, essentially a four-sided box with a drop-down door in each side carried on four or sometimes six wheels. Those with just one or two side planks and an 8 ton capacity were built until 1872 by which time 9 ton, four-wheel, three-plank wagons were being constructed. 1886 saw the introduction of four-plank wagons which were rated to carry 10 tons but a few longer ones ( instead of the usual ) were rated at 12 tons. Five-plank wagons were standard construction from 1902 but from just two years later all new open wagons were built with seven planks.
Many early wagons were built with semi-circular raised ends that could support a tarpaulin cover or 'tilt'. From 1902 a number of open wagons were instead constructed with a longitudinal bar above the middle of the wagon and fixed to a pivot at each end. This was able to support a tarpaulin, or 'sheet' as they were by now known.