War Workers Gallery

Mobile emergency canteen at Paddington Station, during WWII

Paddington station in 1943 and a shot of the mobile emergency canteen, which was used to feed station staff, APR wardens, firemen and other staff who were active during the night when the station canteen was closed. The canteen was usually manned by a driver and a female attendant and was designed as a mobile unit so that it could move from place to place, where it was most needed when air strikes affected station or depot facilities. This mobile trailer canteen was designed in the Road Transport Department Drawing Office at Slough and built at Swindon Works, and was designed with adaptable couplings so that it could be attached to any of the Company's articulated tractors. The canteen was fully equipped with water supply, cooking facilities, tea urn and storage space for emergency stocks of dried food

© STEAM Museum of the GWR

Women workers in the Permanent Way Dept at Reading, 1943

Three ladies from the Permanent Way Department are pictured here at Reading in April 1943 off-loading wooden blocks from a wagon. This photograph is an official Company image, with GWR Chief Engineers Office, Aldermaston. Photographic Department stamped on the reverse. The photo may have been taken to show the work of women during the war, but equally it might have been taken to show joint working between the GWR and LMS whose wagon features in the image. Inter-railway working between the railway companies was actively encouraged by the Government during the war as a means of maintaining an efficient and economic rail service, so staff and rolling stock worked across the different networks in a way that had not been seen previously

Evacuees waiting outside the departure platform at Paddington in 1939

One of the very first war time roles that the GWR was engaged in was the evacuation of children from cities to the relative safety of the countryside. Even before war was declared, plans were drawn up for evacuation so the GWR and the other major railway companies were prepared and on standby to put these plans into action. On August 31st 1939, the day before Germany invaded Poland, the order to begin the evacuation was given. The very next day the mass movement of children began and continued until September 4th. The GWR was responsible for the majority of the children moved from North and East London and while most of the evacuation trains departed from Ealing Broadway, this image shows groups of children being off-loaded from a double decker bus outside the Departure Platform at Paddington Station during the four days of evacuation in September 1939

© STEAM Museum of the GWR