Coaches of the London, Midland and Scottish Railway
[1] Many hundreds of carriages built for the L&Y (mainly at Newton Heath works) came into LMS stock, including some 6-wheel saloons.
Currently two ex-L&Y carriages taken into LMS service have been preserved and restored for irregular public use on the Worth Valley Railway, although one is mounted on a BR underframe built at Wolverton in 1956.
They were wooden framed and panelled, had a fully beaded body with a semi-elliptical roof, doors to all compartments of side-corridor coaches, and were mounted on a steel underframe derived from the final Midland Railway design.
The coaches were fitted with non-automatic screw couplers and gangwayed stock made use of scissors-type British Standard pattern corridor connection (as also used on the Great Western Railway).
Most coaches ran on two four-wheel bogies which were of a 9 ft 0 in wheelbase single bolster design which hardly changed for the whole of the company's life.
Certain characteristic Midland Railway features were incorporated in the design of early LMS coaches which distinguished them from those of other lines.
During this period, the LMS company introduced a considerable quantity of conventional coaches which were comfortable and well built but whose designs were not particularly revolutionary.
For the first time, the LMS abandoned outside compartment doors in corridor coaches and introduced larger windows in their stead.
At first there were two such windows in each compartment (one fixed and one frameless droplight) in the manner of the characteristic Midland pattern vestibule coaches already considered.
The other five coaches were equally luxurious lounge brakes with accommodation for 10 first class passengers in eight individual armchairs and a settee.
These 10 vehicles were followed in 1929 by a similarly styled batch of 25 neutral vestibule coaches for either first or third class passengers.
The start of the second phase in LMS carriage design was almost contemporary with the introduction of the previously mentioned high-waisted, single window designs and the new trend of thought was first exemplified by the appearance in 1929 of six luxury brake firsts with two-a-side compartment seating and somewhat palatial toilet accommodation.
Like the 57 ft vestibule thirds mentioned earlier, these diners were steel panelled with painted simulated beading.
There were also two batches of 12-wheel composite sleeping cars built at this time that retained a high waist and certain LNWR styling features but were flush clad with frameless droplights.
The LMS flush sided coach, of which many examples still remained as late as 1967–8, differed in appearance from its predecessors mainly in the shape of its windows which now exhibited well-rounded corners.
From about 1947–8, the sliding portions were somewhat shortened and in this form were retained as a feature of the British Railways (BR) standard coach.
This short-lived period was, in fact, little more than a continuation of the Stanier era and was not really a new phase in the same sense that the flush sided stock itself was.
Later corridor coaches have, however, been distinguished by the name "Porthole" stock by virtue of the circular toilet window feature which they introduced.
