Narrow Gauge Passenger Cars

The Romulus locomotive is representative of industrial, narrow gauge engines typical of the early 20th century. 24" (60cm) gauge railway lines were laid in France in the first world war to allow supplies to be delivered to the trenches. The British War Department built thousands of standard freight cars for this service. 

There were two major types the class 'D'  and class 'E'  wagons. The 'D' type being a plain drop-side gondola, the 'E' was similar but with a central well. As a passenger car the 'E' affords more comfort and  a lower centre of gravity but weighs more and takes longer to build than the 'D'.

A major reference work for the research into how these wagons were built was The Ashover Light Railway book.

 click for larger images

The ALR was stocked with locomotives and wagons surplus from the war department and the book is exhaustive in it's documentation. It lists eight builders of the wagons who in total produced more than 20,000 examples. Although there are drawings in the book I chose to re-draw them for production as miniatures.

A further reference was the War Department Light Railways site. Regrettably no longer available it seems.

The wagons are solid, stable passenger cars and they look good behind Romulus. The 'E' car will carry up to six small children with no risk of them falling out.  Final results are shown below, click on the thumbnails for a larger view.

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Photo's: #1, C. Bristow, #2, 3, 4, R. Milland, #5 T. Stewart.

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