Birmingham Railway Carriage and Wagon Company

The Birmingham Railway Carriage and Wagon Company (BRC&W) was a railway locomotive and carriage builder, founded in Birmingham, England and, for most of its existence, located at nearby Smethwick, with the factory divided by the boundary between the two places.

BRC&W made not only carriages and wagons, but a range of vehicles, from aeroplanes and gliders to buses, trolleybuses and tanks. Nevertheless, it is as a builder of railway rolling stock that the company is best remembered, exporting to most parts of the new and old worlds. It supplied vehicles to all four of the pre-nationalisation "big four" railway companies (LMS, SR, LNER and GWR), British Rail, Pullman (some of which are still in use) and Wagons Lits, plus railways as diverse as those in Egypt, India, South Africa, Iraq, Malaya and Nigeria, to name but a few. The company even built, in 1910, Argentina's presidential coach, which still survives, and once carried Eva Perón.

The company built hospital trains during the Second Boer War, Handley Page bombers and de Havilland DH10s in 1914-1918, and tanks (including the A10 Cruiser, Churchill, Cromwell and Challenger), plus Hamilcar gliders to carry them, in 1939-1945.

Before World War II, the company had built steam-, petrol- and diesel-powered railcars for overseas customers, not to mention bus bodies for Midland Red, and afterwards developed more motive power products, including BR's Class 26, Class 33 (both diesel) and Class 81 (electric) locomotives. Examples of all three types are preserved.

Products

Some of the locomotives and multiple units built by the company are listed below:

Diesel Locomotives

• British Rail Class 26
• British Rail Class 27
• British Rail Class 33
• British Rail D0260
• CIE 101 Class

Electric Locomotives

• British Rail Class 81

Diesel Multiple Units

• British Rail Class 104
• British Rail Class 118

Electric Multiple Units

• London Underground 1923 Tube Stock
• London Underground 1938 Tube Stock
• London Underground 1956 Tube Stock
• London Underground 1962 Tube Stock
• London Underground CO/CP Stock
• London Underground T Stock

Bibliography

• Birmingham Railway Carriage and Wagon Company - A Century of Achievement, 1855 - 1963, John Hypher, Colin Wheeler and Stephen Wheeler (Runpast, 1996)