RARE HULL & BARNSLEY COACH TO BE RESTORED BY STUDENTS
Students from Hull College School of Construction are to restore Hull & Barnsley Railway lavatory brake third No. 58 – one of only two complete surviving Hull & Barnsley carriages.
Working in collaboration with the North Yorkshire Moors Railway – where the vehicle has hitherto been based – and the Hull & Barnsley Railway Stock Fund, with support from the LNER Carriage Association, the students will make the carriage structurally sound and restore specialist fittings and features. The process, dubbed Project 58, is to be documented by the Discovery Channel for a forthcoming programme.
No. 58 was due to arrive at the college from Goathland on December 20, the first time the carriage has returned to its place of birth since the late 1950s, when much of the HBR network closed. It will remain at the college until its restoration is complete.
Built in 1908 by Birmingham Railway Carriage & Wagon Ltd, No. 58 was originally used on
Hull-Sheffield expresses and was later absorbed into LNER stock as No. 25058. After withdrawal from passenger service in 1956, it was converted into a Mess & Tool Van; the compartments were removed and replaced with cupboards, tool racks and a cooking range.
It carried on in departmental service as No. DE320362 until withdrawal from Springhead Carriage Works in July 1967, when it was purchased by the Hull & Barnsley Railway Stock Fund and moved to the NYMR the following year. Until now, only a limited amount of restoration work has taken place.
The only other complete surviving H&B coach is 1907-built brake third No. 40 – the last surviving H&B vehicle in service. It is currently under restoration at the NYMR. H&B 1884-built four-wheel brake third No. 1 survives as a body only, at the Elsecar Heritage Railway.