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This remarkable rake of four large Gauge 2 coaches came to me through the hands of a respected vintage dealer. At the time the origin of the set was unknown, although it was believed that they had once belonged to the Cadbury family. The Rake consists of:
All Third No. 8397
Resturaunt No. 8996
Brake 3rd No. 8399
Composite No. 8393
The coaches are of Greenly's 'rebated panel' system with glass windows and interior detail. The restaurant car has furnished tables with potted plants. All the coaches are in good working order with sprung bogies but need a good bit of tidying up which will not be undertaken lightly. They are all missing corridor connections and came with coupling chains much too short for 10' radius curves. It was apparent that these coaches had run on a railway of some size, and presumably with a GW locomotive.
The Restaurant car in particular presented a puzzle. The potted plants are clearly from Britains 'Floral Garden' series, but it's known that these were only produced between 1930 and 1940. So were the coaches made after 1930? That seems deeply improbable, but the plants and the furnished tables they are on seemed to be original. These plants are the centrepiece of the whole train and it's hard to imagine it without them. Several of the plants were missing and I was able to obtain identical replacements, confirming their origin. Fortunately all of the much rarer plant pots are all present.
The set was paired with the Jubb Atlantic for it's 'record run'. The oversize proportions of the coaches fit very well with the oversize Jubb locomotive and appear to be built to a scale of around 1:26 rather than the 1:27.4 of Gauge 2. It's not known for sure why prestigious models like this were built oversize, but it may be because steam locomotives of the period were built with the largest boilers possible (before the war, Greenly had said that Gauge 2 "was the smallest practical scale for miniature steam locomotives") and in the picture below you can see how the locomotive and carriages match well in size.
There must have been a GW locomotive in the set originally, so what would that have been? One likely candidate would have been Carson's 'Great Bear', but so far that locomotive has eluded me. And so it rested until October 2021 when I finally acquired the 1915 volume of 'M,R & L' that had been missing from my collection. And scanning through it, I immediately came to this page in June 1915:
Mr H B Jervis had won a prize for his Gauge 2 stock at the 1915 Model Railway Club Exhibition and there at the bottom right is the GW Restaurant car!
The picture, and the model, bear the closest comparison. At first sight, it appears that there are more ventilators in the 1915 picture, but close examination shows that there were more ventilators on the model, but many have been lost. There's little doubt that these two are one and the same! More puzzling is that it is just possible to glimpse what seem to be potted plants on the tables!
So here is a mystery: were Britains in business making their 'Floral Garden' far earlier than believed? Or had the carriage been modified in the '30's? This would not have been difficult, since the centre section of the roof lifts out to allow access to the interior and the battery compartment for the ceiling lights. But then, my friend from whom the coaches had come told me that he recollected that the dealer who had sold them to him had said the plants had been installed by a young lady member of the Cadbury family who had owned the coaches at the time, maybe in the '30's. This seems highly plausible, so perhaps the original plants had decayed and had to be replaced? We'll never know for sure.
Mr Jervis, in the M,R & L article, says that the coaches were built for Mr Clarence Krabbe and were a set of four, which I have. The name Krabbe was familiar to me because my friend Ned Williams, who has studied Gauge 2 extensively, has a brake van inscribed with Mr Krabbe's name. Ned discovered that Clarence Krabbe was the brother in law of John Moore-Brabazon, later Lord Brabazon of Tara, and that the two had built a Gauge 2 railway in Krabbe's garden in 1912. Some photographs of this line exist, but frustratingly none showing 'Toplight' coaches! They do however show a 'Great Bear'.
Mr Jervis published another picture in the October 1915 edition of M,R & L showing a 4-4-4 tank engine, but nothing further about his remarkable coaching stock.
(Brabazon, whose name is forever associated with the failed Brabazon airliner project of the 1940's, was the first man in England to hold a pilot's licence and photographs exist of him meeting with Orville and Wilbur Wright during their visit to England in 1908. It's unlikely that they discussed model railways however, since this seems to have been a fleeting moment in Brabazon's illustrious career).
Mr Krabbe's 'Great Bear' at his 2" Gauge railway at Calcot Grange, Theale, in Berkshire. This loco is 3 rail electric and appears large compared to the tinplate coach behind the tender, so probably not by Carson who built models to scale. Unfortunately there are no Toplight coaches in this view! Photo: Ned Williams.
You can read more about Clarence Krabbe and his railway in Ned Williams' article in Garden Rail, January, 2021.
So, for now, that's what we know. Ned believes that Mr Krabbe's line was taken up during the war and that might explain why Mr Jervis was exhibiting the coaches in 1915, perhaps hoping to find a buyer? Perhaps that buyer was a member of the Cadbury family, but unfortunately my friend Matthew Cadbury has no knowledege of a model railway in the family. I'm still hoping that more of the story will come to light, because these coaches must represent one of the most impressive 'train sets' made during the 'Golden Age', or indeed at any time after.
This remarkable rake of four large Gauge 2 coaches came to me through the hands of a respected vintage dealer. At the time the origin of the set was unknown, although it was believed that they had once belonged to the Cadbury family. The Rake consists of:
All Third No. 8397
Resturaunt No. 8996
Brake 3rd No. 8399
Composite No. 8393
The coaches are of Greenly's 'rebated panel' system with glass windows and interior detail. The restaurant car has furnished tables with potted plants. All the coaches are in good working order with sprung bogies but need a good bit of tidying up which will not be undertaken lightly. They are all missing corridor connections and came with coupling chains much too short for 10' radius curves. It was apparent that these coaches had run on a railway of some size, and presumably with a GW locomotive.
The Restaurant car in particular presented a puzzle. The potted plants are clearly from Britains 'Floral Garden' series, but it's known that these were only produced between 1930 and 1940. So were the coaches made after 1930? That seems deeply improbable, but the plants and the furnished tables they are on seemed to be original. These plants are the centrepiece of the whole train and it's hard to imagine it without them. Several of the plants were missing and I was able to obtain identical replacements, confirming their origin. Fortunately all of the much rarer plant pots are all present.
The set was paired with the Jubb Atlantic for it's 'record run'. The oversize proportions of the coaches fit very well with the oversize Jubb locomotive and appear to be built to a scale of around 1:26 rather than the 1:27.4 of Gauge 2. It's not known for sure why prestigious models like this were built oversize, but it may be because steam locomotives of the period were built with the largest boilers possible (before the war, Greenly had said that Gauge 2 "was the smallest practical scale for miniature steam locomotives") and in the picture below you can see how the locomotive and carriages match well in size.
There must have been a GW locomotive in the set originally, so what would that have been? One likely candidate would have been Carson's 'Great Bear', but so far that locomotive has eluded me. And so it rested until October 2021 when I finally acquired the 1915 volume of 'M,R & L' that had been missing from my collection. And scanning through it, I immediately came to this page in June 1915:
Mr H B Jervis had won a prize for his Gauge 2 stock at the 1915 Model Railway Club Exhibition and there at the bottom right is the GW Restaurant car!
The picture, and the model, bear the closest comparison. At first sight, it appears that there are more ventilators in the 1915 picture, but close examination shows that there were more ventilators on the model, but many have been lost. There's little doubt that these two are one and the same! More puzzling is that it is just possible to glimpse what seem to be potted plants on the tables!
So here is a mystery: were Britains in business making their 'Floral Garden' far earlier than believed? Or had the carriage been modified in the '30's? This would not have been difficult, since the centre section of the roof lifts out to allow access to the interior and the battery compartment for the ceiling lights. But then, my friend from whom the coaches had come told me that he recollected that the dealer who had sold them to him had said the plants had been installed by a young lady member of the Cadbury family who had owned the coaches at the time, maybe in the '30's. This seems highly plausible, so perhaps the original plants had decayed and had to be replaced? We'll never know for sure.
Mr Jervis, in the M,R & L article, says that the coaches were built for Mr Clarence Krabbe and were a set of four, which I have. The name Krabbe was familiar to me because my friend Ned Williams, who has studied Gauge 2 extensively, has a brake van inscribed with Mr Krabbe's name. Ned discovered that Clarence Krabbe was the brother in law of John Moore-Brabazon, later Lord Brabazon of Tara, and that the two had built a Gauge 2 railway in Krabbe's garden in 1912. Some photographs of this line exist, but frustratingly none showing 'Toplight' coaches! They do however show a 'Great Bear'.
Mr Jervis published another picture in the October 1915 edition of M,R & L showing a 4-4-4 tank engine, but nothing further about his remarkable coaching stock.
(Brabazon, whose name is forever associated with the failed Brabazon airliner project of the 1940's, was the first man in England to hold a pilot's licence and photographs exist of him meeting with Orville and Wilbur Wright during their visit to England in 1908. It's unlikely that they discussed model railways however, since this seems to have been a fleeting moment in Brabazon's illustrious career).
Mr Krabbe's 'Great Bear' at his 2" Gauge railway at Calcot Grange, Theale, in Berkshire. This loco is 3 rail electric and appears large compared to the tinplate coach behind the tender, so probably not by Carson who built models to scale. Unfortunately there are no Toplight coaches in this view! Photo: Ned Williams.
You can read more about Clarence Krabbe and his railway in Ned Williams' article in Garden Rail, January, 2021.
So, for now, that's what we know. Ned believes that Mr Krabbe's line was taken up during the war and that might explain why Mr Jervis was exhibiting the coaches in 1915, perhaps hoping to find a buyer? Perhaps that buyer was a member of the Cadbury family, but unfortunately my friend Matthew Cadbury has no knowledege of a model railway in the family. I'm still hoping that more of the story will come to light, because these coaches must represent one of the most impressive 'train sets' made during the 'Golden Age', or indeed at any time after.