Railway Carriages

On the TV news today they showed a train from 60 or 70 years ago that had been restored to its former glory. They said that the train and carriages had been left to rot but some enthusiast had come along and restored it. It also said that some of the carriages had been once turned into homes, and there was a woman who was interviewed who said that she had actually lived in one. This was during the housing shortage in the Second World War.
I can well believe this because I remember people living in railway carriages. I used one family in my novel "Looking Back" (never published but got close some time ago). They were "The Bishops" and what a family they were. The mother was a screaming harridan with a husband I hardly ever saw and two boys who were about my age but who never attended school. Rough? They were the roughest lot I ever came across. Not that I knew them personally. Saw them only from a distance. The boys were always dressed in rags.
Another family who lived near them possibly in another railway carriage had a dog, a medium sized sheep dog. One day the owner of the dog couldn't get the dog to come to him; the dog was under another carriage and wouldn't come out. We helped him get the dog out but regretted it soon after for the man beat the dog with a stick ruthlessly.
They were the very dregs of the town we lived in.