These coaches were built between 1903 and 1909 to the design of John McIntosh, the Locomotive Superintendent of the Caledonian Railway, for the Glasgow, Edinburgh and Aberdeen service known as "The Grampian Express". They were 65ft long and built to the extremes of the loading gauge. They ran on 6-wheel bogies due to their weight. They were elaborately sprung, and the body was mounted on rubber pads to eliminate noise and vibration. They were also insulated with felt to further reduce noise. Fitted out to luxurious standards they became very popular, and also found service on the Clyde coast expresses.
They travelled far along the West Coast Mainline and were frequent visitors to Euston. One of their duties was down to the south west on the Anglo Scottish Westcountry expresses. The Brake Composites used on this service became to be known as the Taunton Brakes. Being heavily built and luxuriously fitted out, they had a long life lasting into the mid 1950's. An interesting note regarding the roofs: the early versions were built with a roof that had a flat profile on top, similar to clerestory roofs, suggesting that McIntosh had intended them to be clerestories, but had a change of mind before building commenced and kept the clerestory profile. Later builds had elliptical roofs.
Included Assets
The Caledonian Railway 65ft Grampian - BR Crimson Cream Coach Pack includes the following variants:
- [MT]Gramp-BR-D94_Comp-HR 8
- [MT]Gramp-BR-D94_Comp-LR 2
- [MT]Gramp-BR-D95_BrakeComp-HR 9
- [MT]Gramp-BR-D95_BrakeComp-LR 2
- [MT]Gramp-BR-D95B_BrakeComp-HR 4
- [MT]Gramp-BR-D96_Third-HR 14
- [MT]Gramp-BR-D96_Third-LR 2
- [MT]Gramp-BR-D97_BrakeThird-LR 8
- [MT]Gramp-BR-D97_BrakeThird-HR 6
- [MT]Gramp-BR-D97A_BrakeThird 14
