The “A” Series : Four-Wheel Carriages
For the opening of the railway on 1st July 1873 twelve of these four-wheel carriages were delivered from the Metropolitan Carriage & Wagon Co., of Saltley Works in Birmingham. They were made up of three separate first class compartments, each designed to carry ten people, five on each bench seat (whereas today it is more common to accommodate eight in each compartment) and were slightly longer than the other four wheelers, having wider doorway openings. Their basic layout would be copied for all later compartment stock through until the final delivery in 1926, albeit with a number of variations. They were 17’ 6” long and 17’ 6” wide and fitted with roof-mounted oil lamp housings accessed via a set of integral steps fitted to the bulkhead, lamps being shared between compartments rather than having one dedicated to each, a feature which has been replicated on the Foxdale Coach today, albeit for effect, lighting now being supplied via battery power.
Records suggest that carriages wee numerically numbered across all series initially, the “A” prefix being applied at a later time. The series consisted of eleven compartment carriages and one first class saloon (A.12). From, the earliest days rakes commonly ran in sets, and from 1881 a policy of close-coupling the four-wheelers into pairs was embarked upon which later formed the basis of the “pairs” series being two four-wheelers mounted on a bogie underframe. A number of the series survive in this form, with A.1 restored as one half of F.62, and A.7 replicated as part of F.54. Details for each individual carriage of this series can be found by clicking the links on the left of the information panel below, each article is accompanied by a rendering in a number of conjectural liveries and lining details which are open to debate and added for variety, the lake scheme being applied to carriages as built:-