During the period modelled, Great Western passengers travelling on the Metropolitan lines had the use of 4-wheel carriages originally designed by James Holden, the Carriage and Wagon Superintendent and chief assistant to William Dean. Various diagrams to his design were built over many years, even after he’d gone on to greater things as the Locomotive, Carriage and Wagon Superintendent of the GER in 1885.

Photographs of these carriages on Metropolitan duties in the period Basilica Fields is set have been difficult to come by (suggestions please!), so I’ve had to make do with this lovely photo taken at Paddington c1910.

I will be running a couple of rakes of Holden carriages of this type. One will represent Middle Circle Set No.4 as running between 1889 – c1896 (after pestering Graham Beare, and he John Lewis with a multitude of questions, sufficient information has come to hand to extrapolate the numbers in the set during those years), and a second set formed as one might have been seen c1897-1905. Unfortunately the historical record is much soupier with this later period, so unless further evidence comes to light, the running numbers will be largely “best guesstimate”.

In a later post I’ll explore the formation of the two sets and their duties which will lead to a more comprehensive article on the main site when that’s up and running, and I’ll also detail the build of the sets using Roxey Mouldings kits and my own etches.