The Great Western Railway was founded back in 1838 with the aim of providing a fast rail link between London and Bristol, and by the turn of the century the GWR ran a network which spread from its London terminus at Paddington out to much of the West of England and most of Wales. Over these tracks they carried all kinds of goods imaginable, using an endless variety of wagons, and the most common type of all was the basic wooden-bodied coal wagon. The GWR had a fleet of their own, but they also hauled vast numbers of private owner wagons which carried the livery of their operators. One of these was the firm of Walker & Rodgers, coal merchants of the town of Warwick in the West Midlands. Warwick lay on the GWR's route from Paddington north via Wolverhampton to Birkenhead, and Walker & Rodgers' modest fleet of smart red wagons would have been a familiar sight trundling off to the colliery and back with their load. Less commonplace would have been the GWR's special-purpose wagons for special loads, amongst which were flat wagons called 'conflats' designed for carrying new-fangled containers. In an era when refrigeration was still a novelty, some of the containers were insulated for carrying perishable loads cooled by dry ice. The wooden coal wagons and the old-style containers are long gone now, along with the GWR itself, but you can bring them back on your layout with our GW Goods Set.
Please note that these wagons are boxed individually.A load for the coal wagon is not included.