Thursday 19 November 2015

Clean 60T Bogie Bolster D

Fastline Simulation: A clean dia. 1/472 Bogie Bolster D with imperial weights.

Fastline Simulation: A clean dia. 1/472 Bogie Bolster D with metric weights and small load of steel billets.

Fastline Simulation: A clean dia. 1/472 Bogie Bolster D with metric weights and a maximum capacity load of I-beams.

Fastline Simulation: A clean dia. 1/472 Bogie Bolster D with imperial weights and a load of pipes.
After a number of blog posts featuring various incarnations of the 21t coal hopper it's nice to be able to share something a little bit different -  The unfitted 60T Bogie Bolster D.

British Railways decided that changes in the steel industry would require the use of more bogie vehicles. The wagons fitted with bolsters to support the load were mainly grouped according to length (and hence the nominal capacity).

The largest wagons were classed as Bogie Bolster D, being 52ft in length with a load capacity of 42tons. The first wagons built for BR were 150 vehicles built at Derby in 1949 to an LMS design, which BR described as Diagram 1/470. This featured five fixed bolsters and lashing down rings on the solebar. LMS diamond frame bogies were fitted.

The next 200 vehicles were to an LNER design, appearing in 1950, as Lot 2211 to Diagram 1/472 with the outer 2 bolsters moveable between 2 locations and lashing rings set into the floor of the wagon. They were fitted with LNER diamond frame bogies.

1951 saw the appearance of Lot 2237 and with it, the change to GWR style plate bogies set the appearance of the vast majority of Bolster D, with over another 1600 unfitted Dia. 472 vehicles constructed in 14 lots until 1958. It is these wagons which feature in our 60T Bogie Bolster pack for Train Simulator.

Saturday 14 November 2015

Unfitted dia 1/141 21t HTO Coal Hoppers

Fastline Simulation: An ex works dia. 1/141 21T coal hopper. This diagram was a direct copy of the existing LNER diagram complete with the long handbrake levers.

Fastline Simulation. This dia. 1/141 21T coal hopper has seen a little bit of traffic and has gained large HOP 21 branding.

Fastline Simulation: Wagon identification has started to move on since this dia 1/141 21T coal hopper last saw a repaint and it has gained a fully boxed data panel but retains the HOP 21 telegraphic coding.

Fastline Simulation: At a point somewhere near the end of its working life this dia. 1/141 HOT 21T coal hopper is seen with very little grey paint remaining and a partially boxed data panel with HTO TOPS code.
Continuing our exploration of the complex history of  21T coal hoppers built by British Railways we're bouncing back to one of the earliest parts of the story with the diagram 1/141 hoppers. These were a direct descendent of the diagram built by the LNER and retained the LNER brake rigging and most noticeably the long LNER handbrake lever. Surprisingly the hoppers could still be found in use during the early 1980s and some were included in the various rebodying schemes - not something covered in this pack!

In keeping with the dia. 1/146 unfitted hoppers we previewed earlier in the week these hoppers worked hard and were subject to corrosion from the acidic nature of the coal that they carried. As a consequence we have prepared various levels of distress to allow the hoppers to created a varied rake of wagons. The hoppers also feature a number of different lettering styles which are applied at random but can be overriden to one of your choice should you desire.

Also in common with the dia. 1/141 hoppers these were unbraked and were not fitted with lamp brackets to carry a tail lamp as they were never envisaged to be at the rear of the train. Therefore, to allow users to be able to form correctly marshalled trains we will be bundling a dia. 1/506 unfitted brake van that we previewed in our 'Bonus Brake Vans - Part 1'.

Monday 9 November 2015

Unfitted dia 1/146 21t HTO Coal Hoppers


Fastline Simulation: A freshly repainted dia. 1/146 unfitted 21t coal Hopper with boxed HOP 21 coding.

Fastline Simulation: A slighty grubby dia. 1/146 unfitted 21t coal Hopper in unfitted grey livery with un-boxed HOP 21 coding.

Fastline Simulation: This dia. 1/146 unfitted 21t coal Hopper had just been marked as 21T and at some point in the past saw some grey paint which is just managing to survive here and there.

Fastline Simulation: A fully boxed TOPS panel with HTO code has been added to this dia. 1/146 unfitted 21t coal Hopper. However, it would appear to have been a long time since it was acquainted with a paint brush.


One of our current rolling stock expansion themes for Train Simulator are the British Railways 21t Coal Hoppers. One of the last variations built has already been released in the form of the Rebodied dia. 1/146 HTV 21t Coal Hoppers.

Today we're looking back to a much earlier part of the story with the unfitted version of the dia. 1/146 hoppers which made up the majority of the wagons built to this diagram complete with the original style of body with five strengthening ribs and plain axleboxes.

Like most coal wagons these hoppers worked hard and were subject to corrosion from the acidic nature of the coal that they carried. As a consequence we have prepared various levels of distress to allow the hoppers to created a varied rake of wagons. The hoppers also feature a number of different lettering styles which are applied at random but can be overriden to one of your choice should you desire.

Given that the wagons were unbraked they were not fitted with lamp brackets to carry a tail lamp as they were never envisaged to be at the rear of the train. Therefore, to allow users to be able to form correctly marshalled trains we will be bundling a dia. 1/506 unfitted brake van that we previewed in our 'Bonus Brake Vans - Part 1' blog post a while ago.