• Our booking engine at tickets.railforums.co.uk (powered by TrainSplit) helps support the running of the forum with every ticket purchase! Find out more and ask any questions/give us feedback in this thread!

Motorail loading wagons?

Status
Not open for further replies.

NightStar

Member
Joined
1 Jul 2011
Messages
175
Location
Across the pond.
GidDay, I am in the process of putting together a small collection of British models in OO scale. I am looking for models of the Motorail loading cars, and the FGW Motorail cars? This is the loading wagon from the old BR Motorail service as I understand it? http://www.departmentals.com/photo/96452 While the Nightstock train never came to be. I cannot shake the idea of using the FGW cars with the loading car behind the Nightstar cars. Ofcourse the motorail cars would have had to been updated for the channel tunnel as they do not meet the safety standards. The loading cars would be the barrier cars between the sleepers and the motorail cars. These cars would have to have been renovated and placed on new high speed freight trucks, as well as been rewired and such. I just can't shake the idea of running such a long train. I realize this might be asking a bit much from the Class 37/6 locomotives. But I may spray a couple of Class 47 units or even a class 60 because of the similarities to the class 92 locomotives in channel tunnel service. Then there is the rebuilt class 31 ideas I had last year. Three units pulling a mixed unit train that would be longer than the 18 car Eurostar just seems like a cool idea to model in 00 scale! :D

Robert
 
Sponsor Post - registered members do not see these adverts; click here to register, or click here to log in
R

RailUK Forums

fgwrich

Established Member
Joined
15 Apr 2009
Messages
9,252
Location
Between Edinburgh and Exeter
Unfortunatly neither have ever been produced in rtr form - the FGW Motorail vans, which were side loading were however produced many years ago as a Lima GUV Conversion Kit but now seems to have dissapeared too, and any completed like all FGW Rolling stock seems to go for a fairly high price.
 

NightStar

Member
Joined
1 Jul 2011
Messages
175
Location
Across the pond.
Hmm, Maybe I will have to look at scratch building the motorail cars from GUV van frames or possibly Mk1 frames? Is there any information or good photos of the FGW cars I could use as a starting point? I have only ever found a couple of photos shot from a long ways away from the tracks of these cars.

Robert
 

hairyhandedfool

Established Member
Joined
14 Apr 2008
Messages
8,837
From what I remember of Model Rail's conversion kit, you started with a Lima GUV (although I suppose now you could use a Bachmann one), fit B4 bogies, removed the air vents on the roof and the equipment box under the sole bar and then there were brass etches for the sides and ends.

Google 'fgw motorail' for some images of the rail thing. there was one in a different livery at Exeter St Davids, I imagine it has long gone now, but maybe there are pictures of that to find also.
 

fgwrich

Established Member
Joined
15 Apr 2009
Messages
9,252
Location
Between Edinburgh and Exeter
It's certainly long gone now, as after ending their use with FGW, most of the vans were stored in Long Marston - However, they could / should* be returning to the Mainline sooner or later but with a different use. This time, supposedly in contract with Colas Rail, they will be converted to move fresh food from M&S's distribution centre in Kent to various parts of the country.

*I say should with a pinch of salt though, 6 vans (3 x 2 car sets) moved up from Eastleigh to Rugby sometime last spring, whether or not theyve moved on anywhere since for fitment of refrigeration equipment i don't know, but it's certainly resulted in some vans in store in Eastleigh and others up in Rugby.

I would try to link some images of them, but i cant seem to find any anywhere and i can't seem to find my pictures either at the moment.
 
Last edited:

NightStar

Member
Joined
1 Jul 2011
Messages
175
Location
Across the pond.
Good Evening Gents, It is a shame that these cars have not been made into rtr stock by either Hornby or Lima. These cars are very unique and would be a great addition to any fgw layout. For my project I have decided that building the motorail cars from scratch will be my best bet for obtaining what I am looking for. Now the fun part. Since my railroad is semi fictional, I do have the chance to make changes to the cars and the way they are designed. Since my idea is to run the fgw cars through the channel tunnel on the end of the Nightstar train I would assume that a barrier car would be needed for this service to meet fire protection standards etc? Enter the currently unused BR motorail loading cars. http://www.departmentals.com/photo/96452 While I believe there was only two of these cars which have now moved on to the scrapper unforunately? They were available, and make interesting cars since they remind me of the le shuttle trains. The fgw cars were side loaders from what I can gather so far? I would like to know if it would have been possible to make them end loaders as well? Certainly in any scale I could do what ever and that is what I am getting at. I want to make a set of cars that are a cross between the old end loader cars from BR days and the fgw cars from recent times. for my nightstar motorail service from scotland to london and through the tunnel.

Where is there a good place for basic dimensional info on the BR loader cars and the fgw cars for making them from styrene? Since the fgw cars are GUV mods a basic drawing for a GUV car would be the logical starting point correct? What kind of car were the loader cars made from? Certainly a depressed center flat car was the starting point for the real cars.

Yes I am just mad enough I think to pull all of this off! :D

Robert
 

hairyhandedfool

Established Member
Joined
14 Apr 2008
Messages
8,837
.... The fgw cars were side loaders from what I can gather so far? I would like to know if it would have been possible to make them end loaders as well? ....

Whilst they were side loading, they ran in pairs and had doors at the 'inner' end and a bulkhead at the 'outer' end. It wouldn't be beyond the realms of possibility that 'middle' cars could have been built with doors at both ends.
 

fgwrich

Established Member
Joined
15 Apr 2009
Messages
9,252
Location
Between Edinburgh and Exeter
If anything, you might be better of starting with a couple of old MK1s for the FGW one, as the bodies were completely rebuilt giving them more of a Mk1 shaped profile than the flatter lower profile of the GUV.

In fact, here are some Flickr phots of the Motorail Vans, complete with a picture from our very own RPM & with a freind of mine in it! :)

http://www.flickr.com/search/?q=fgw+motorail+vans

And here is a image of the inner end.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/johnoram/5535014633/sizes/l/in/photostream/

For TOPS code reference, they are also known as NVA motorail vans.
 

NightStar

Member
Joined
1 Jul 2011
Messages
175
Location
Across the pond.
Rich, It is interesting that these cars were configured for running in pairs of 2, Yet the units were not semi permanently coupled with drawbars or some such? Would it be totally daffy to mate two cars using screw couplers like some of the Nightstock had fitted? Probably not. But since the cars were configured in that manner it would be totally possible to model them with end loading abilities for use with the old loading wagons from BR days. Interesting project indeed. Now I need to find a cheap source for a Mk1 coach to mess up since I am new to BR modeling, and generally have not built too many projects from kitbash form. I suppose Ehattons is a good starting point? Should I go with just a MK1 shell and a GUV frame,and running gear? Or strip the Mk1 frame and work from there? What type of flat wagon could the loader cars be done up from I wonder? :roll:
In total how many fgw motorail cars existed? 6, 8 more? How many wagons constructed total? This is important so I can decide how many motorail cars behind my two Nightstock consist.

Robert
 

hairyhandedfool

Established Member
Joined
14 Apr 2008
Messages
8,837
Been doing some googling. From what I can see there were five loading vans of the type you are looking at and there is a possibility that one is at the Bluebell Railway and another may be at Bo'ness (no confirmed sightings), apparently two went to Booths for scrapping last year and the last is supposed to be in use as a Weltrol at MRC (?????). Don't know fit they were to travel though, as apparently they didn't travel with the train, two were kept near Euston, two near Glasgow and a spare at Carlisle.

On the Motorail van front, there were 9 that I know of 96101 which seemed to live at Exeter St. Davids (prototype maybe?) and 96602-96609 that were used by FGW.
 

NightStar

Member
Joined
1 Jul 2011
Messages
175
Location
Across the pond.
Thank you for the roster information. It is a shame two of the cars made it the scrapyard. But then these cars do not have much of a use today either. 9 of the fgw cars. Must have run with 4 to a train and possibly a spare?

Robert
 

hairyhandedfool

Established Member
Joined
14 Apr 2008
Messages
8,837
Well as I say, one seemed to live at Exeter St Davids and it wasn't in fgw green so I can only presume it was the prototype and not really used. AFAIK the others only ever ran in pairs and only two in a train.
 

NightStar

Member
Joined
1 Jul 2011
Messages
175
Location
Across the pond.
Well now that we have the fgw cars sorted out. I now wonder about the suitability of the old BR loading wagons for mainline workings at 100 mph? These cars never seemed to be coupled in the consist? But rather shunted into the train to load and unload the motorail cars if I am not mistaken? Those cars were based in Scotland and on the side of the car the sign read something like "Glasgow use only" This would imply that these cars were not welcome on the BR system for nation wide use for some reason?

Robert
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Top