General Utility Van (GUV)

Built by Pressed Steel in 1958 as one of BR’s standard Diagram 811 General Utility Vans, this bogie vehicle was designed for loading containerised mail, parcels and newspapers via its side doors, and ran through-piped on express passenger and parcels services rather than under its own heating supply. Little is known of her early allocations, though she worked on both the London Midland and Western Regions before turning up at Peterborough by 1988 and Cambridge three years later, carrying various numbers over her career including W86416, W93416, M93416, 95148 and 94148.

In 1995 she was converted to a High Security General Utility Van, her windows plated over and roller shutter doors and Time Division Multiplex wiring fitted, as part of a Rail Express Systems scheme to run high-speed overnight mail services and fixed-formation push-pull trains for Royal Mail. Based at Bristol Barton Hill from 1996, she moved to Euston in 2003 before returning to Barton Hill the following year. When Royal Mail withdrew from rail transport in 2005 she became surplus to requirements, passing to store at Exeter Riverside before moving to the West Somerset Railway that December.

Purchased from the WSR and brought to Trevarno in 2008, the van has since been converted into our shop and store, fitted with a non-standard roof lighting system that filters daylight in so that electric lighting isn’t normally needed.