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Bachmann 38-201A JPA Bogie Cement Hopper Wagons


drmalesis
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Well Christmas will soon be upon us and friends and family are starting to ask me if there's anything I particularly want. :) Whilst I was laid up for a couple of days with flu, I spent some time watching YouTube vids of the Settle & Carlilse railway as inspiration for my layout. Having recently purchased a Class 66 in GBRf livery and having no modern freight stock you run with it, I came across several videos showing 66's hauling a variety of interesting stock. I particularly liked the Containerised Gypsum on KFA bogie wagons, and the Ribblehead to Chirk timber workings on adapted KFA bogie wagons. Neither of these are available as RTR models so I sighed and ploughed through a few more videos. Then bingo :!: a lovely video of a 66 (EWS livery) hauling a rake of 10 Castle Cement VTG JPA Bogie Cement Hopper Wagons across the Ribblehead viaduct - what a glorious sight.

Well, needless to say I've ordered 4 (2 as pressie from me to me), and a couple from my wife to me. We'll see how many more I get when Santa's been - photo's to follow... :D

Duncan

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Look forward to seeing the photos Duncan.

I try to model the trains I remember best but I never came into contact with cement wagons and so I felt they were one wagon I could overlook. Again the timber wagons were another type that I never encountered but the Gypsum wagons are another story. How I wish that one of the major manufacturers would release the British Gypsum containers - perhaps they'd fit on the recent Hornby KFA wagons!

I spent a couple of years or so where part of my duties was to watch over the loading of the Gypsum trains at Drax power station before being sent foward via the Settle & Carlisle railway to Kirby Thore (Newbiggin) which would be the train you mentioned. Apart from the KFA wagons which each held 2 containers, we also used FEA wagons (3 containers per wagon) and PFA wagons with just a single container each.

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There's a good review of Hornby's KFA Container Wagons in the News Extra supplement included with Novembers British Railway Modelling magazine. I looked at these quite closely but with a typical price tag of around £25.00 each and a prototypical rake of 17+ being required, wer'e talking second mortgage territory - and even then the containers would need to be replaced, altered, repainted etc to look like the Gypsum containers.

I also considered the ubiquitous Freightliner and EWS Coal Hopper alternatives, but they also require protypical rakes of around 17+ wagons - again at £19.00+ each, far too expensive.

Okay the Cement Hoppers are in a similar price bracket, but I'd only need half as many to re-create a prototypical rake. I'd at least like to get the current era as close to prototype as possible and indulge in a flight of fancy when running the heritage stuff.

If anyones interested though, the BRM magazine supplement recommends the C-Rail company as a source of containers for KFA's and Inter-models etc. Not only can they supply branding transfers for the containers, but they also supply a great range of "Graffiti" transfers for use on wagons like the HHA and HTA Bulk Coal Hoppers... :D

Duncan

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I'm out of touch now with modern day rolling stock but there's obviously some variations within the KFA wagon fleet. The Hornby model doesn't seem to resemble the KFA's I recall and so I assume that the British Gypsum KFA wagons were actually a variation. Again, I'm sure the British Gypsum containers were the standard 20 feet ones (?) but only 2 of them would fit on the KFAs whereas the Hornby model can accommodate one 20ft and one 40ft!

WagonsontheWeb has a nice photo by Gareth Bayer of the KFA with 2 containers as I remember them.

As I also previously mentioned the smaller PFA wagons, here's a rather poor photograph of one example with a British Gypsum container standing at Milford in approx 2001.

gyp1.jpg

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Thanks for the photo Mick. I had a good look around the Waggons on the Web site and I never knew there could be so many large detail variations on the same wagon type. In the case of the KFA Bogie Timber Wagon, they originally started life as a IWA/B Cargowaggon before its modification.

However, back to the subject of the original post - I'm please to say that 4 JPA waggons were duly delivered this morning. :D Two have been sent on to the North Pole for wrapping and special delivery, the other two are sitting next to me on my test track. A review and photo's to follow very soon.

Duncan

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