POWERHOUSE COLLECTION

Third class railway carriage used on first railway in New South Wales

Object No. B1614

This third class carriage is thought to be No. 2 of the original 12 third class carriages ordered by the Sydney Railway Company for the first railway to be built in New South Wales, from Sydney to Parramatta in 1855. It was built in 1854 by Joseph Wright and Sons, one of the foremost carriage builders of the day. It arrived in Sydney by ship in time for the official opening of the railway on 26 September 1855. It is extremely significant in terms of the history of rolling stock and of rail transport in New South Wales. Its survival in the railways for over 100 years is remarkable. The carriage is very basic. The seats are hard benches arranged to accommodate the maximum number of passengers, 18 in each of two compartments. Instead of windows there are large openings which extend almost the full length of each compartment, and passengers were exposed to soot and smoke. Half-height stable-type entrance doors are provided in the centre of each compartment. The lack of headroom inside the carriage was an issue, as the interior height is only 1.7 metres. Despite these discomforts, rail travel was a vast improvement on travel over rough and dustry roads in vehicles such as mail coaches, open carriages and wagons. This carriage is a rare survivor of the many hundreds built by the Wright firm for railways all over the world. Apart from the first, second and third class carriages in this museum, the only others known to exist are a coach body in England and a couple of frames in a Swedish museum. Margaret Simpson, assistant curator, 2005

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Summary

Object Statement

Railway carriage, third class, originally third class No. 2, later workman's sleeping van WSV6, timber / iron, made by Joseph Wright & Sons of Saltley, Birmingham, England, 1854, used on the first railway in New South Wales between Sydney and Parramatta in 1855

Physical Description

The third class carriage is a four-wheel rail passenger vehicle capable of carrying 36 seated passengers in two compartment. Each compartment seats 18 on narrow benches. The benches against the partition and end walls seat five passengers each. The remaining eight passengers occupy four narrow backless benches. Half-height stable-type entrance doors are provided in the centre of each side of each compartment. Instead of glass windows, large openings are provided which extend almost the full length of each compartment. The ends of each window are semi-circular, providing some relief from the otherwise bland utilitarian lines of the body. The carriage is not fitted with any brakes and features 3 foot diameter hand-forged wheels added during the 1947 restoration instead of the original 3 foot 6 inch ones, wheels of the larger diameter being unavailable at the time. A tension bar trenched into the sole bar of the carriage runs the length of the vehicle and acts as a truss to prevent sagging. The interior is painted in two shades of green, while the exterior is coated with "antique Estapol", a brand marketed from the 1960s by Wattyl paints, to create a simulated timber grain finish. On the side of the carriage "No.1" in a gold transfer appears in the centre window frame partition; the number does not relate to either of the numbers by which the carriage was designated during its working life. Below this are the gold letters "GSR" (standing for Great Southern Railway) while "THIRD CLASS" appears in gold on each of the doors. Specifications Length over body 19 feet (5.79m) Width over body 7 feet (2.13m) Height rail to roof 10 feet 1½ inches (3.09m) Wheelbase 11 feet (3.35m) Wheel diameter 3 feet (915mm) Tare 4.6 tonnes

DIMENSIONS

Height

3150 mm

Width

2700 mm

Weight

4600 kg

PRODUCTION

Notes

The third class carriage was built by Joseph Wright & Sons of Saltley, Birmingham, England in 1854. Joseph Wright was born at Reading, England, in 1792 the third son of William and Susan Wright. He was apprenticed to a stage coach builder in London, showed great ability and in 1828 or 1829 became a coach proprietor and later an operator of Royal Mail coaches over many routes, including London to Birmingham. Wright soon became a partner in the London firm of Wright and Powell, which began to prosper after Powell left in 1834. Joseph Wright commenced building railway carriages in 1835. He is credited with building the first coaches for the London and Birmingham railway, the predecessor of the London and North Western Railway (LNWR), which partially opened in 1837. The need for expansion saw Wright purchase 5 acres of land in the village of Saltley, outside Birmingham. This was conveniently adjacent to both the Grand Union Canal and the then recently opened Birmingham to Derby railway line, allowing the efficient transport of both raw materials and finished products. Production there began in 1845. The Saltley works appears to have been managed by Joseph's eldest son, Henry Wright, assisted by his youngest son, Joseph Wright junior, and the company became known as Joseph Wright & Sons. Joseph senior remained in London, where he managed the carriage works and various contracts he held to run railways. In 1848 an additional lease was taken for more land at Saltley, and by 1853 the works employed around 800 men. Such was the success of the Saltley establishment that the London works were closed by the early 1850s and production concentrated at Saltley. By the 1850s the Wrights had developed a high reputation for workmanship and innovation. They developed eight-wheel carriages and were at the cutting edge of carriage design at the time. As British railway companies became larger, through extensions and amalgamations, many set up their own carriage and wagon works and became less reliant on private builders such as Joseph Wright & Sons. To offset this change, the Wrights turned to the fast growing overseas railways, many of them British-engineered and British-run, whose promoters looked to Britain for rolling stock. Consequently, Joseph Wright not only supplied the first railway carriages for New South Wales and Victoria but for Bulgaria, Chile, Denmark, Egypt, India, Norway, Paraguay, Spain and Sweden. By the late 1850s rivals with newer works and more up-to-date plant had begun to compete with Joseph Wright & Sons. The firm expanded and became a limited company, attracting additional capital. Unfortunately, in 1859 Joseph Wright suffered an untimely and accidental death from gas poisoning; this was not an unusual cause of death in the early days of domestic gas supply. Nevertheless, the plans he had put in place were carried out by his sons, who formed the Metropolitan Railway Carriage & Wagon Co Ltd in 1862. The following year the registered office of the company was changed from London to Saltley, and in time the manufacturing base extended to horse trams and then steam trams. The village of Saltley developed into the world's greatest concentration of railway carriage and wagon manufacturers, with the Metropolitan, Midland, and Brown & Marshall firms all within a 2-kilometre radius. By 1900 the Metropolitan Company's Saltley works had become the largest of its kind in the United Kingdom. It became the Metropolitan Cammell Carriage & Wagon Works in 1929 and was later part of the Metro-Cammel Group. During the Second World War the company's record office was damaged and many of the records were lost. After the war the remaining records were donated to the Birmingham Central Library. The old Wright factory was closed in 1962 and production was concentrated at the nearby Midland works. The company traded under the Metropolitan-Cammell name until taken over by GEC-Alsthom in 1989; in 1998, after GEC withdrew from the partnership, it became Alstom (without the H) Transport. The building of carriages in Saltley eventually ceased after 159 years.

HISTORY

Notes

This carriage was originally designated third class No. 2 and was used on the first railway in New South Wales, between Sydney and Parramatta, in 1855. It was later converted to workman's sleeping van WSV6. It was restored by apprentices at Eveleigh Carriage Works in1947, donated to the museum in 1965, and repainted in 1980. According to Mike Newport, of Alstom's Washwood Heath Works in Birmingham, who provided information on the Wright firm, there is only one Joseph Wright & Sons coach body in preservation in Britain today. Apart from the three carriages in Sydney (the museum holds first class carriage B2237 and second class carriage B1664 as well as the third class carriage), the only other known survivors are the frames of two carriages in a museum in Sweden.

SOURCE

Credit Line

Gift of NSW Department of Railways, 1965

Acquisition Date

2 November 1965

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