Three of our MDHB steel-bodied vans.
These steel-bodied vans were originally designed to carry gunpowder and other explosive materials, although in practice they were used for any type of goods requiring careful handling. Their solid construction and relatively low roof gave them a maximum load capacity of 8 tons. Now this may sound more than adequate for the majority of purposes, but bear in mind that cargo ships even back in the 1920s had a deadweight tonnage measured in thousands rather than hundreds, so if you had one of our vans standing on the dockside then it wouldn't take very long to fill it up when the boat came in. Rakes of identical vans would be the norm rather than the exception when it came to transferring goods from ship to rail. Nowadays the cargo all comes in big tin boxes which are craned straight from ship to container wagon, of course, but you can bring back the good old days of crates, sacks, barrels and sweating stevedores on your layout with our MDHB rake.

Please note that these wagons are boxed individually.