Wagon Development at Earlestown
The nearest thing to a catalogue of L&NWR goods wagons is the
1903 Wagon Diagram Book, which was commissioned by Mr H. D. Earl when he succeeded to the
post a Wagon Superintendent in 1903. The book lists all the wagon designs extant at that time
by means of a dimensioned sketch of the side and end elevation of each type. Its original
purpose may have been as an instrument of management but it became a ready reference to
enable every goods agent to select and order the wagons needed for each type of Traffic he
was offered. Because of this wide distribution many copies have survived. Since one page was
used for each type and each page was numbered it has become convenient to refer to the design
by its page or "diagram" number. In its original form the book contained 83 pages. Each new
type of wagon developed after that date was usually issued with the next available page
number. However, in some instances new designs were assigned a suffix letter where the
purpose of the new design was the same as the original. Even then there were exceptions to
the rule and by 1923 the book had reached 110 numbered pages with several pages having A, B,
C or even D suffixes. In the case of some of the specialised wagons the diagram book recorded
the register, or running, number carried by each of the wagons, but this was not the case for
the more general types so this source tells us nothing about the quantities of each type.
Fortunately, there are three major sources at the National Archive, Kew to fill in this
detail for us:-
Annual Stock Valuation Lists
This information was collected annually, apparently as part of the annual accounts, from
1861 until 1899 and is preserved in three volumes at the National Archive, Kew.