BR MK1 Maroon BSK

BR MK1 Maroon BSK

Type: CORRIDOR BRAKE SECOND (BSK)
Built 1952 - 1963
Seating: 24 (S & W regions 32), in 4 compartments
Length: 64.5 feet
Weight: 35 tons
Era: 1956 - late 60s
BR Region : All

The Corridor Brake Second, presented here in original condition as No. 34390 allocated to the London Midland Region, mounted on BR1 bogies and fitted internally with tungsten lighting, wooden interior panelling and steam heating.

Designed for standard passenger use, the passenger seating is arranged into four compartments, each with its own window, seating three abreast. Each compartment accessed by a 2 foot wide corridor (hence the term 'corridor' coach) running down one side of the coach. The 'Brake' equipment being housed in the Guard's compartment adjacent to the middle public access doors, with provisions made for the carriage of parcel goods (up to a maximum weight of two and half tons evenly distributed) taking up the remainder of the coach space.

Foldaway armrests were provided in each passenger compartment, and on crowded trains these could be lifted back into the seat thus providing an additional two seats per compartment. The Southern and Western region Second class compartments were fitted with no armrests, thus seating eight people to a compartment. In time, as coaches moved around the network, the nature of six and eight seated compartments presented problems to operational managers regarding seat reservation. To the extent that many armrests were removed or sewn into the upright positions.

The Guard's compartment, houses a vacuum brake and gauge, hand brake, desk table with swivel chair, wall mounted letter rack, food warmer, first aid box, emergency cutting tools and spare couplings and steam pipes. A wire mesh screen divides the goods carrying area from the passenger corridor, with the added security of bars fitted to all windows on the non corridor side.


USE

This type of coach would be found on mainline passenger trains on all regions of British Railways, during mid 1950s to late 1960s. Normally found at the front or at the rear (sometimes both) of the train, normally with the Brake end coupled to the locomotive.


LIVERY

A change of government in 1951 saw the passing of a new Transport Act that lead to the abolition of the Railway Executive in 1956, giving the Regions much more autonomy in their actions. One such regional development led to the London Midland, Southern and Western regions adopting new liveries based on their former pre-nationalised companies.

Urged on by the desire to replace the Crimson and Cream livery with a single coloured livery for ease of maintenance and cleaning, the Maroon livery made its first appearance in the spring of 1956. Instigated by the London Midland Region (the largest BR region) - this livery closely matched that of the former London Midland and Scottish Railway, whose lines outside of Scotland the LM region now controlled.

Maroon was adopted as the standard livery for coaching stock - replacing Crimson and Cream - on all regions, except the Southern. Coach ends were painted black until 1964 where upon new painting techniques, developed at the Southern Region's Eastleigh works, started the trend to paint the coach ends in the same colour as the body sides.



THE MARK 1 PROGRAMME

After the Second World War, wartime conditions highlighted the need for better standards in regards to vehicle lengths, profiles and couplings, for stock working between the 'Big Four' companies. A commission of senior officers was duly appointed by the UK 'Railway Companies Association' to create and implement a set of dimensions that would be applied to all future stock from each company. Although completed, the standards were not implemented, as nationalisation was imminent.

On nationalisation in 1948, the commission's findings were used by the new 'British Railways Carriage Standards Committee' as the basis to developed the 'C1 Restriction' profile - a set of standards governing coach length, profile and bogie centres. Thus from this the classic Mark 1 desig

Author: Stephen Dark/Alexander Barnard

BR MK1 Maroon BSK
• config.txt 6.31KB
mk1_maroon_bsk_art
mk1_maroon_bsk_art_512.texture.txt 95 bytes
mk1_maroon_bsk_art_512.tga 1.00MB
mk1_maroon_bsk_art_icon.texture.txt 97 bytes
mk1_maroon_bsk_art_icon.tga 32.02KB
mk1_maroon_bsk_body
env.texture.txt 26 bytes
env.tga 48.53KB
mk1_maroon_bsk.texture.txt 37 bytes
mk1_maroon_bsk.tga 1.50MB
mk1_maroon_bsk_body.pm 429.16KB
mk1_maroon_bsk_shadow
black.texture.txt 28 bytes
black.tga 812 bytes
mk1_maroon_bsk_shadow.pm 72.61KB