WAGON REPORT
THRALL Europa's workshops at York had a brief life and many of the wagons built there seem to be similarly ill-fated.
The works opened in 1997 following the refurbishment of buildings at the former ABB Holgate Park site. Delivery of the first new wagon to EWS took place on July 27, 1998. The original plan to build 2,500 new wagons was never realised. Many hundreds of vehicles were imported from Astro Vagoane in Romania because of lower costs. Following achange of management at EWS, follow-on orders never materialised. Closure of the works took place in 2003. Especially short-lived has been the fleet of 1145 HTA bogie coal hoppers. Increases in carbon tax effectively ended the requirement for wagons to carry coal to power stations. Although 110 wagons were rebuilt as HRA hoppers for aggregates traffic the remainder are slowly being sent for scrap.
Recent disposals have been: Nos. 310019/033/ 048/084/131/ 144/164/166/ 182/189/226/ 275/305/330/ 453/546/640/ 657/740/788/ 819/825837.
Sims Metals is processing the wagons at Newport Docks.
W H Davis has completed conversion of afurther batch of HYA aggregate hoppers:
Nos. 37 70 6955 201-8/ 204-2/205-9/207-5/208-3/2091/214-1 /217-4 to 219-0/221-6/ 224 -8/251-3/252- 1/255-4/ 258-8/259-6/270-3/275-2/ 276-0/290-4 to 304-3.
Colas Rail has taken delivery of four new Unimat tampers from Plasser &Theurer - Nos. DR 75008-011 - type 09-4x4/4S Dynamic.
They can tamp up to four sleepers at a time and have in-built dynamic track stabilisation. This allows newly relaid track to be opened to traffic without the need to impose a temporary speed restriction (TSR).
Alternative European Vehicle Numbers (EVN) are carried - Nos. 99 70 9123 008-3/009-1/010-9/011-7.
A further pair of tampers will arrive in the UK from Austria later this year - Nos. DR 75012013 - alternately, Nos. 99 70 9123 012-5 /013-5.
Older Plasser & Theurer track machines sent for scrap have been Balfour Beatty twin jib cranes Nos. DRP 78218/223/224, USP 5000C ballast regulators Nos. DR 77315/316/336,heavy duty diesel cranes Nos. DRP 81507/81511.
Network Rail's P95UK track renewal machine has received a major refurbishment at Arlington Fleet Services workshops at Eastleigh.
The machine was built in Switzerland by Material lndustriel (Matisa) in 2004.
It is 262ft 6in over buffers and weighs 240 tonnes in working order.
There are four individual units - Nos. DR 78801/811/ 821/831 which are beam and clipping, fastener and power, handling and sleeper gantry wagons. Twin-jib track relayers were introduced to simplify the handling of prefabricated track panels. Previously, the panels were handled by pairs of civil engineers cranes.
A new batch of 14 machines was ordered in 1978-80 to replace earlier stock, built by Cowans Sheldon, Carlisle.
The relayers were hauled to possessions but are self-propelled on-site.
Nos. DRC 78225-238, serial Nos. 31449-462, have a lifting capacity of 12.5 tonnes.
FCA 'Tench' equipment carriers outshopped by the Stoke-on-Trent workshops of DB Cargo have been
Nos. 610021 /022/ 067/068/2 53/254.
The wagons carry three dropside cages each, with a maximum load capacity of 15.6 tonnes.
Arbel WIA enclosed car transporters Nos. 85 70 4971 042-2/049-7I 059-6 have been scrapped.