The Wolverton Carriage & Wagon Works photographic collections

There are two main Wolverton collections. The first, comprising some 850 negatives, primarily covers the LNWR period, with images of newly completed carriages, including Travelling Post Offices, kitchen cars and First World War ambulance trains. Road vehicles also feature, with views of buses operated by the LNWR. The second component, about 485 negatives, is similar, but dates from a slightly later period, comprising posed photographs of LMS carriages and wagons at the works.

The LNWR component is listed and a catalogue was also published by the Railprint Joint Venture, which marketed the collection in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Photographs once sold by Railprint appear on their list P14. The LMS collection is listed in a handwritten register, with reference prints available for consultation in the Reading Room.

Wolverton Carriage & Wagon Works was built as a locomotive repair shop for the London & Birmingham Railway in 1838. The company, renamed the London & North Western Railway in 1846, transferred all locomotive production to Crewe in 1877 and the Wolverton site was from then on used for the construction and refurbishment of carriages, wagons and road vehicles. Following the 1923 grouping this role continued under the London, Midland & Scottish Railway and during the Second World War the works also built aircraft components, assault craft and armoured vehicles. Wolverton subsequently produced rolling stock for British Railways, together with Post Office sorting vans and saloons for Queen Elizabeth II's royal train.