British Railways Swindon Carriage & Wagon Works

While Derby Carriage & Wagon Works built a massive amount of 'ordinary' DMUs, British Railways Swindon Works was assigned the task of building the more unusual and higher end types - the Inter-Cities, Cross-Countries and Trans-Pennines. They amounted to 417 vehicles of the following types:

• 79xxx series: 64 Inter-City vehicles
• Class 120: 194 Cross Country vehicles
• Class 123: 40 Inter-City vehicles
• Class 124: 51 Trans-Pennine vehicles
• Class 126: 66 Inter-City vehicles

All of these types had sets built with buffet cars.

Deliveries commenced in 1956 of the 79xxx Inter-City sets, considered by many as very plain and austere (the same cab shape would also be used for the 120s and 126s), and finished with the Class 123 Inter-City sets in 1963, which along with the Trans-Pennines had had design consultants involved and were considered as the most ashthetically pleasing of all the first generation DMUs.

The image shows construction in progress of the 79xxx series Inter-City vehicles in 1956. An article Building a DMU looks at the construction of these vehicles at Swindon in detail.

The next images shows the evolution of the cab design from 79xxx Inter-City to Trans-Pennine:

A plan of the Works, dated 1954:

Online company histories:
Wikipedia
Grace's Guide to British Industrial History

The Carriage Works survive as business units in the care of Swindon Borough Council.

Brochures

These two brochures were issued when visitors toured the Works.

The first covered both the Locomotive and the Carriage and Wagon Shops (the plan of which is shown above):

The second is a 36 page booklet that only covered the Carriage and Wagon Works.

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