Dapol O Gauge 7F-053-013 BR HYBAR B484950 1/044 13-Ton Open Wagon BR Bauxite wth Sheet Rail
Dapol O gauge model of British Railways diagram 1/044 5 plank open merchandise wagon B484950 finished in bauxite livery. This vacuum train brake equipped wagon was also fitted with a sheet support rail to ensure rain drained from tarpaulin covers. The model rail can be moved so can be posed folded down when the wagon is empty.
Open wagons had long been a principal merchandise wagons on Britains' railways, even though the percentage of covered vans had increased steadily British Railways still found a need for new open merchandise wagons in the 1950s.
Dapol are producing a range of BR standard design wagons from the 1950s using the standard 10-foot wheelbase 17ft6in length underframe. Many thousands of wagons were built using this frame in the 1950s and 60s, serving British Rail into the 1980s and still a familiar sight on heritage railways. A diecast chassis has been produced, providing plenty of weight for open wagons and any flat wagons which might be produced and are fitted with spring buffers and coupling hook with 3-link couplings. The chassis also incorporates a positionable brake lever.
British Railways Ideal Stocks Committee favoured the LNER all-steel design wagons as the standard high sided open merchandise wagons, but recognised that the all-steel wagons proved unsuitable for some traffic and wooden bodied wagons would also be required. Wood body wagons noticeably suffered from damage to the end planking as loads shifted, often during shunting. The LMS had addressed this issue with robust corrugated steel end panels and as BR sorted out the left-over pre-nationalisation building programmes diagrams 1/039 and 1/044 appeared as the first of the BR design 5-plank wagons to be built in large numbers.
2,820 wagons were built to diagram 1/044, to the same basic plan as 1/039, equipped with vacuum train brakes but without the sheet support rail.