Civil Engineers Wagons Volume 2 – Early
British Rail: 1968-1977
by David Larkin
The first five Kestrel
Railway Books volumes
by David Larkin looked at the
revenue-earning wagon fleet operated by British Railways and its immediate
successor, British Rail. This volume is
the second of three looking at the substantial fleet of specially-designed
wagons that were used for track maintenance, and focuses on the many forms of
early mechanized on-track plant, such as ballast cleaners, cranes and track
relaying units, all of which were hauled to site. It also covers the self-propelled machines
that preceded or followed the ballast trains, such as track recorders, tampers,
liners and consolidators.
As for the wagons themselves, only three new types
were introduced in this period, all bogie ballast hoppers, but there was a mass
repainting of the existing fleet and the introduction of TOPS codes. The book includes build details, the telegraphic code names used to identify the Civil Engineers wagons
throughout the period and details of the number series for each type.
There is quite an overlap throughout the three
volumes in this series, but this volume concentrates on the period from 1968 to
1977 – a very different period from
the previous twenty years. Local gangs
disappeared and were replaced by mobile gangs that arrived by road
transport. Although cranes had always
been in use by the Civil Engineers, and some early tamping machines had been
tried out, there was no push towards mechanization until the late 1950s, when
track relaying units began to appear.
These were followed in the 1960s by ballast cleaners and tamping
machines. All these are fully covered in
this volume.
Softback: 96 pages
273 x 215mm
978-1-905505-24-1
Price: £15.00
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The second of three volumes in this series…