The CHOCOLATE train
I n the 1930s, Fry’s Chocolate adapted a special three-coach train, based at Somerdale near Keynsham, for promoting their products to invited customers, at sites around the UK rail network. The train included a lounge café/tearoom, kitchen, dressing rooms, sleeping accommodation for salesmen and an on-board Lister powerplant to provide electric lighting.
The train comprised a pair of converted GWR ‘Monster’ vans, which were originally built to carry theatrical scenery and numbered 590/3. Most of the side doors were removed and sets of gangways were installed. The ‘Monster’ vans sandwiched centre car No. 9502, an ‘H2’ GWR First Class Dining Car with clerestory roof, converted into a tea lounge.
It’s likely that all were painted in Fry’s house colours of royal blue with gold lining. Operational dates were from 1933 to 1938 and possibly into 1939 and the inaugural train, from Somerdale, was pulled by a GWR pannier tank, decorated with a ‘Fry’s Chocolate Special’ headboard. In the main, the Fry’s coaches were often attached to service trains, of all four major railway companies.
Movements were often by night.
It’s said that the train covered 10,000 miles, visiting Scotland, North Wales, the North East, the West, Central and Southern England, to 250 locations in total. These included Barnsley, Barrow, Bishop Auckland, Bristol, Caernarfon, Carlisle, Canterbury, Chesterfield, Colwyn Bay, Consett, Crewe, Dundee