Wagon News

First MRA rebuild

Mid-june saw the first of the rebodied former MRA side-tipping ballast wagons appear outside Loram’s workshops at Derby. Fitted with a substantial and heavily-ribbed fixed body, 81 70 5831 001-8 is coded as a JNA and finished in Network Rail yellow. At least 250 MRAS are due to be rebuilt as conventional ballast wagons in the next two years, all receiving new bodies on the existing underframes. At the same time, a number of other MRAS were noted on site at Loram, stripped of their old bodywork and hydraulics, waiting for the new box body to be added.

More deliveries

The latest batch of Wascosa-owned FEA infrastructure flats for Network Rail arrived on May 21, 66785 being utilised to take 81 70 4524 015/024/025 and 129/136/141-155 forward from Dollands Moor to Eastleigh Yard. A batch of blue-painted JNA box wagons for VTG arrived on June 11. 66728 worked from Dollands Moor to Eastleigh with 81 70 5932 491 to 520.

LU wagons testing

The latest location to host the four pre-series infrastructure wagons built for London Underground by Chinese manufacturer CRRC is the Chinnor and Princes Risborough Railway. Ballast wagon BW002 arrived on June 17, with sister vehicle BW001 and flat wagons FW001 and FW002 the following week. Previously the quartet had been at the Falcon Works in Loughborough and before that at DB’S Stoke wagon works, having arrived in the UK in September 2020 for testing at the GCR. The order for 71 new wagons for LUL continues to be delayed; it was originally scheduled for delivery in 2019.

PCAS for scrap

No less than 42 PCA cement presflos were dispatched from Oxwellmains to EMR’S Liverpool scrapyard on May 17 behind 66547, these being BCC10738/39/41-43/45/4749/51/53/62/67/70/74/76/77,

BCC10 802/05/06/10/12/72/76/81/86/88/93 /94/96, BCC11002/12/27/39/53/61/7 1/75/76/82 and BCC11105/10.

Latest disposals

Delivered to EMR’S Attercliffe yard in May and June were MFA 391034/288 and MHA/MPA 394003/13/23/33/47/67, 394101/05/07, 394236/42/99, 394302/46/66/70, 394507/45/ 56/84/87, 394622/33/83/86/89/94, 394715/51/67/73, 394944/65 and 396031/093, while the company’s Kingsbury site received MHA 394930 and 396113, MTA 395054/58/77 and 395340, OCA 112061/193 and ZCA Sea Urchin DC200744.