Clean HEA Hoppers

These have been sitting quietly for a couple of days so it seemed a good idea to finally share them.

In a bid to increase the maximum speed of the HBA hoppers and following a number of trials the last 200 were built with Bruninghaus springs rather than the 13 leaf friction link suspension originally fitted which allowed the maximum speed to be raised to 75mph so the hoppers could work in the fastest Speedlink trains. The modification was successful and the majority of the friction link fitted HBAs were subsequently rebuilt in line with the last 200 hoppers.

The decision to recode the modified wagons with the HEA TOPS code was made in late 1981 which means that from 1979 - 1981 the last 200 hoppers and any of the early conversions ran with Bruninghaus springs and the TOPS code HBA.