Guy Harding’s
S&DJR 20 TON
BRAKE & MAIL VAN

Guy Harding’s prize winning 5” gauge model is a of a Somerset & Dorset Joint Railway brake van No 5, built in 1912 at Highbury. A total of 22 of these vans was produced in small batches between 1889 and 1923, surviving in LMS ownership, some as late as the 1950s. The vans were in common use on an early morning freight service from Bath and to convey mail along the route to Bournemouth.

The vans went thorough many modifications, notably reduction in height of the side ducket to accommodate a bi-directional fixed oil lamp. The step was slightly lowered to fit oil-lubricated axle boxes.

Around 1922 one of the panels on the stepped end of the van was converted to an inward opening panel so that the guard could reach out with an extended pole to detach a banking engine at the top of an incline.

The model, shown at the 2015 Midlands exhibition, features the reduced height duckets and oil lamps and is finished in S&DJR light grey freight livery, with ironwork picked out in black.