Graham Farish 20T Brake Van 377-525C

Graham Farish 20T Brake Van 377-525C

At Nationalisation, British Railways inherited a broad range of different types of brake van and, for a short while, continued to build to GWR and LMS designs. However, when eventually they got round to choosing a standard design, they chose that of the former LNER.

With the introduction of through-train vacuum breaking, brake vans were converted and the guard had a release valve in the van with which he could apply the brakes. From the late 1950s, long distance trains had to have brake vans with lookout duckets in each side of the van and this lead to the displacement of many earlier models including GWR and LMS vans. As diesel locomotives replaced steam in the 1960s, guards began to travel in the rear cab of the locomotive and brake vans quickly became redundant.

There are few standard BR vehicles more familiar than the standard brake van. It has been modelled by virtually every manufacturer of proprietary models for the British market In 2005, the current well detailed Graham Farish model replaced the earlier one of 2003 and here we have B952497 in BR brown.