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'.

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