David Larkin

The final volume in the series, written by one of the acknowledged experts on British Railway wagons. This volume in the series examines the various steel wagon designs acquired and, in some cases, perpetuated by BR. Bolster wagons, both four-wheeled and bogie types, are covered together with the four-wheeled plate, pipe and tube wagons. There were many conversions from the latter types and these are fully covered. Trestle plate wagons, both four wheeled and bogie, are examined together with other special types, principally the Weltrol.The volume closes with a look at the use of older acquired types in the post-1968 period, with a brief look at survivors in the 1980s.As with all the other titles in the series, it is illustrated throughout with around 200 black and white photographs. The whole series is essential reading for those interested in this aspect of British Railways history and an invaluable reference source for those engaged in modelling the post 1940s era.

British Railways was created in 1948 when the Great Western, the London, Midland & Scottish, the London & North Eastern and the Southern were taken into public ownership. It inherited all their locomotives, passenger and goods rolling stock. Whilst much has been published on BR locomotives and passenger stock, accurate and detailed coverage of the large inventory of vehicles used to convey the huge volumes of goods traffic carried by the railways at that time, is less readily available. This new series, of which this will be the penultimate volume, sets out to provide that information.This book deals mostly with two types of vehicles inherited by BR, the relatively small number of Ballast Plough Brake Vans and a huge fleet of hopper wagons of all types and capacities. Included in this category are hoppers of both wooden and steel construction which were used for a range of traffic flows including coke, coal and loco coal, iron ore and ballast. These vehicles included both those which had been part of the inventories of the companies nationalised in 1948 and those that came from private businesses.This volume, as with the others in the series is illustrated throughout with around 200 black and white photographs. The series is essential reading for those interested in this aspect of British railway history and an invaluable reference source for those engaged in modelling the post 1940s era.