The West Somerset Railway Heritage Trust
Archive pictures of GWR Sleeping Car no 9038
The sleeping car is manoevered through the streets of Bridgwater towards its final home in 1933. The steam lorry itself is worthy of close study!
9038 appears to be here jacked up on timbers, presumably after having been taken off of the carriage it was brought on. It appears to have attracted a lot of attention.
Here we see workmen shuttering the sleeping car and constructing the bungalow around it. If it had not been for this protective cladding around it, the coach would have rotted away many years ago. The finished house was appropriately named Journey's End
Official GWR picture of the sleeping car at Swindon Works.
1986 and the bungalow is gently pulled apart to release 9038 from its slumbers and to enable it to begin its long journey back to traffic.
The heart-stopping moment when the frail structure of the coach is lifted by crane back onto a supporting lorry. The carriage did not have a supporting underframe at this point and, unsupported, was very fragile indeed.
A more recent picture showing the coach regaining its former glory in the Swindon shed at Williton station. It is, perhaps, very appropriate that both the coach and the shed in which it was restored both began their lives at Swindon and are seen together again at Williton.