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London & South Western Railway 494 - Corridor 3rd (built in 1911)
Mike Esau

This coach, and early example of a corridor-connected vehicle, was built to Drawing 1872 for the top express services from Waterloo. It was displaced from this into second-line service by more modern vehicles in the 1920s, and on withdrawal from passenger service was converted into a camping coach. From 1964 it saw use as a mess coach at St. Blazey, and a wagon control office at Westbury until September 1974.

Information is available to enable an authentic reconstruction of the interior from a contemporary book, the carriage chapter of which was written by Surrey Warner, the LSWR's carriage supremo, and a coloured leaflet showing cross-sections of the vehicle. Although structurally in fairly poor shape, but with corridor partitions to the correct design obtained for it, its restoration is in abeyance, at least until our current projects have been completed.