RNA Barrier Wagons

Until the mid 1990s railway operations required the use of barrier wagons when trains were carrying Dangerous Goods to give better protection to train crews and the goods themselves in the event of derailment or collision. Traditionally these barrier wagons would be drawn from whatever suitable wagons were available in the yard at the time that the train was assembled. However, with the sectorisation of British Rail in the run up to privatisation all assets and requirements had to be accounted for.

With this in mind, Railfreight Coal assembled a dedicated fleet of barrier wagons for use with nuclear flask traffic. It is likely that a number of the wagons that were involved had been in use for this very purpose for some time but were now formally assigned and converted for the role. A large number had their hopper bodies removed and a new floor added. Alongside this they gained a coat of the new Railfreight Sector livery complete with coal branding.

Other hoppers retained their bodywork but gained a repaint in the Sector livery while others were simply recoded as RNA while retaining their previous liveries.

HEA Hopper Conversions: Simple Barriers

A conversation with one of our customers asking about barrier wagons reminded me that we've already shown you the barrier wagons converted from HEA hoppers but hadn't got round to showing the full body versions.

These probably count as some of the simplest conversion going with just a change of TOPS code to identify their change of use. Most of the hoppers were looking pretty scruffy in this use but some did receive Railfreight Coal livery and will feature in a future post.

HEA Hopper Conversions: Cut Down RNA

It seemed to be about time to have a break from pictures of coal wagons, so here's a wagon that used to be a coal wagon!

One feature of railway operation, which seems to have virtually ended now, is the use of barrier wagons to hopefully give some protection to the train crew should anything go wrong. Quite often these barrier wagons were empty revenue wagons placed at either end of the hazardous commodity being conveyed.

However, in April 1989 a design sheet was issued to convert 30 HEA hopper wagons into barriers for use with nuclear flask trains which were then the responsibility of the Railfreight Coal Sector. The work involved the removal of the hopper body, the addition of some extra weight and plating over of the hole left by removing the hopper.

The screenshots from Train Simulator 2014 show both sides of recently converted RNA wagons posing in the sunshine for the official photographer. The application of lettering does seem to have posed a problem due to the lack of bodywork and as such there are some non standard lettering features and no two wagons seem to be lettered in quite the same way which means we have had to go for a bit of a best average approach.