One each of these authentic BR goods wagons from the Graham Farish standard range.
When the nationalisation of 1948 swept the old private railway companies into history, the colourful
private-owner wagons which had been such a feature of pre-war goods trains were swept away with
them, and a new era of austerity dawned. The brand new British Railways had better things to spend
the taxpayers' money on than fancy paint for wagons & vans, and those vehicles which were lucky
enough to be painted at all got a plain coat of grey or brown. Our 5-plank open wagon, one of the many
thousands which formed the backbone of the goods fleet, carries the plain grey livery denoting an
'unfitted' vehicle with no vacuum or air brakes.
As time passed, the wagon works' paint budgets became slightly more generous, and the odd hint
of colour broke through the otherwise unremitting air of dinge. Our insulated van, with its unusual but
authentic asymmetric doors, carries the distinctive shade of light blue which BR termed 'ice blue' in
reference to its use on wagons designed to carry refrigerated loads. Ventilated vans of the same size
could carry a 12-ton load, but the insulated vans were only rated for 10 tons because the thickness of
the insulated walls significantly reduced the dimensions of the interior load area. Our van also bears the
'XP' designation to show it was equipped with vacuum brakes and so could run in high-speed goods
trains, or even attached to passenger trains as so-called 'tail traffic'.
The old wagons & vans are long gone now, replaced by giant high-speed high-capacity modern freight
wagons with colourful paint schemes and lots of logos, but you can recreate the good old days of
post-war austerity on your layout with our goods set.
Please note that these wagons are boxed individually.
Loads are not included.
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