*Hold the date*
We are very pleased to announce that Maunsell Brake 3rd No 3687 is rostered to be entering traffic on 31 May and should then be in service on weekends through June. Current plans are that it will be running with our other three operational Maunsell carriages, 1309, 1336 and 6686. We hope that lots of you will want to come and enjoy a ride in our latest completed restoration project.
The carriage, built in 1931 to the narrow “Restriction 0” width of 8-ft for use on the line from London to Hastings, is a remarkable survivor, and becomes the first example of this type of coach to be carry passengers in 64 years.
3687 was built to the designs of Richard Maunsell, with the distinctive high windows down the corridor side. It was modernised internally in 1952 to keep it in step with more modern carriages being built for other routes. It was one of the last six such carriages running when it ran on the LCGB’s “The South Eastern Limited” rail-tour on 11 June 1961. Two of the locomotives used that day are also now on the Bluebell, C-class 592 and O1-class 65, and this train was also the last to carry passengers over the Hawkhurst branch.
The carriage came to the Bluebell in 1992 after use as an emergency control train office, later becoming an Instruction Coach for London Fire Brigade training at Stewarts Lane depot. It had lost all its interior fittings and most of the partitions and internal structure as well, and the plan had been to use it as a source of spare parts for other Maunsell carriages on the Bluebell. Instead however the late David Wigley (who sadly died earlier this week) identified the body structure as being in remarkably sound condition, and instead set about its restoration, with a couple of his friends. He reconstructed the interior, and all the steel sheeting on the exterior was replaced.
Just before the pandemic it entered our carriage works and volunteers from what is now the SR Coach Group worked with David to complete its restoration, which is back to its 1931 condition. Being narrower than most carriages, the compartments seat six people rather than 8, so are thus more spacious than most, in terms of space per person.
The seating material is a reproduction of an original 1930s SR pattern of moquette, known as “Green Jazz”. The carriage joins our other three Maunsell carriages in service to form a 4-coach set. Of the four, being the oldest, it’s the only one to feature the contrasting varnished natural wood on the sidelight (window) frames.
