The village of Womersley lies in the Yorkshire badlands a few miles to the north of Doncaster, and until the mid-nineteenth century it was just an agricultural hamlet in the middle of nowhere. The only industry to speak of was a limestone quarry, providing lime for the local farmers to plough into their fields, but with the only transport being horse-drawn carts on dirt-track roads then the quarrymen couldn't sell their wares to much of a market. Things were about to change, though, and the railways were on their way to every nook and cranny of England's green and pleasant land. The Great Northern Railway had worked its way north from Kings Cross as far as Doncaster, and had its eye on the big cities of Wakefield and Leeds. Meanwhile the Lancashire & Yorkshire Railway fancied a southbound connection to Doncaster and onwards to London. They ended up building towards each other until they met end-on, and came to a gentlemanly agreement over running powers to give each company the connection they wanted. And the GN's section of the line went right through Womersley, with a station opening in 1848, so the little hamlet found itself with transport links which it couldn't have dreamt of. Suddenly the quarrymen could shift all the lime they could dig out of the ground, and the family firm of John Scott were quick to take advantage. By the time the twentieth century came around they were a well-known supplier of agricultural and building lime throughout Yorkshire and the north of England, and their blue wagons would have been a familiar sight on the steam railways of the day. As special-purpose wagons they would have escaped being taken into the wartime wagon pool, so some could well have run on into the post-war nationalisation era of BR steam and even green diesel. The old wooden wagons have long gone now, of course, but you can bring them back on your layout with our Scott wagon. Incidentally, the Scott lime works apparently bought much of the coal for its lime kilns from Ackton Hall colliery, so if you have one of our Ackton Hall wagons in your collection then couple it up to a Scott wagon for an authentic pairing!

To buy this wagon along with our Richard Briggs & Sons lime wagon, please go to our 'N' Sets page.