Express Parcels diesel railcar No.W17W coupled to a parcels vehicle is missing the figure 1 from its number. As with its passenger carrying peers, No.W17W used two AEC 8.85 litre engines with a gearbox fitted to each engine and had three pairs of sliding doors. It was painted in all-over maroon in late 1952 but this picture was taken several years later in 1955. No.W17W was withdrawn in January 1959 when the new British Railways diesel parcels units came into service. Just one of the two former G.W.R. Railcars built solely for parcels traffic , in contrast to the many variants of her passenger carrying sisters , W17W shared that distinction with W34W , and in January of 1956 the one seen here , for some reason missing her figure ' 1 ' , was allocated to Leamington whilst W34W was to be found at Southall, where , incidentally , her power units and transmission had been built by A.E.C. Motors . At that period in time the 35 remaining Railcars were spread over the whole of the Western Region , ranging from Worcester , Leamington and Oxford in the North to South Wales and as far South as Weymouth , which is shown in my old shedbook to have had W28W on its books