This coach, an early example of a corridor-connected vehicle, was built to Drawing 1872 for the top express services from Waterloo. It was displaced
from this onto second-line duties by more modern vehicles in the 1920s, and on withdrawal from passenger service was converted into a camping coach.
From 1964 it saw use first as a mess coach at St. Blazey, then as a wagon control office at Westbury until September 1974.
Information to enable an authentic reconstruction of the interior is available from two sources: a contemporary book, the relevant chapter of which was
written by LSWR carriage supremo Surrey Warner, and a coloured leaflet showing cross-sections of the vehicle. Structurally it is in fairly poor shape,
but corridor partitions to the correct design have been obtained for it.
It remains an important part of our collection and our future plans, but restoration is currently in abeyance until other projects have been completed. On 29 March 2018 it became one of 15 heritage vehicles then housed in the new 'Operation Undercover 4' storage shed at Horsted Keynes.
