Fourteen PRAs were introduced in 1983 by Standard Wagon at Heywood. They had underframes recovered from APCM PVV vans that had had an open box body built on them at Reddish in mid 1982 with TOPS owner code SRW. They were numbered RLS6303 – 6316. The PRAs went out of use during the early 1990s. They worked from Pontsmill in Cornwall to Scotland for Wiggins Teape.
Class 20 Diesel number 20 138 shunts a PRA wagon at Fort William Yard on 3rd May 1988. These small wagons were grab loaded with china clay in Cornwall (usually at Pontsmill or Burngullow) and travelled via the speedlink network to Fort William for use in the paper industry. Copyright Graham Roose from the Ivan Stewart Collection
When first converted the livery was all-over grey, including underframes and buffer shanks. The underframes and buffer shanks were during the late 1980s later painted black, although the entire livery was usually buried under layers of grime!
Class 25 Diesel number 25 095 at Winnick Quay with some PRAs destined for Pontsmill via St Blazey on 21st June 1983. Copyright Roger Geach
As can be seen from our selection of images, the wagons could be seen between Cornwall and Scotland! They can be run in short formations or as part of a larger consist.
Michael Rhodes very kindly sent us the above image showing 8 PRAs behind a pair of Class 87s. He says "Just ordered 4 x PRAs and wanted to send you an image of them in action. I seem to have about a dozen images of the wagons en-route from Cornwall to Scotland, mostly on the Severn Tunnel-Mossend Speedlinks in the 1980s - I found one image with 8 of them at the front of the consist and thought it might be of interest - as far as I recall it hasn't been published anywhere before in the various books so it would be the images 1st outing since 1985!."
Class 47 Diesel number 47 091 "THOR" heads the 09:34 St. Blazey - Severn Tunnel Junction Speedlink working through Wellington on 11th July 1985. An amazing image showing three PRAs immediately behind the Clay Tiger! Copyright David Rostance.
Peter Foot was the Area Freight Manager at St Blazey and he said (in conversation with Chris Trerise) "I remember that we were quite excited that ECLP had won a new order from Wiggins Teape in Scotland for paper-grade clay and that new wagons had been ordered. We were a bit shocked when the 'new' wagons turned out to be 4-wheelers but hey-ho it was another flow to protect our precious Speedlink trains. As far as I can remember the PRAs ONLY worked into Pontsmill because the required grade of clay was only produced at Pontsmill - it is not generally realised how many different grades of clay there are, but I'm not an expert in that field! Why only 14 wagons? Don't know for sure but I guess someone had calculated that 14 was sufficient for the quantities involved. As far as I know they were only ever used on the Pontsmill to Wiggins Teape flow - certainly we always referred to them as the wigginsteapes, as in ''2 wigginsteapes due in on this mornings air-brake''. (The Speedlink trains were always known as 'the air-brakes' because air-brakes were such a novelty!!)"
Ponts Mill Interlude
The following images were all taken at Ponts Mill by John Vaughan and are Copyright and courtesy of www.britishrailwayphotographs.com
The Class 08 featured is 08 945 and the images were taken on 16th May 1984.
Also at Ponts Mill is this image from Craig Munday which is just oozing atmosphere! 08 801 at the ground frame waits to rejoin the main Newquay branch with a loaded PRA and a brake van from Ponts Mill in 1986.
We wish to thank Simon Bendall at Rail Express for his assistance with this project. We also wish to thank Roger Geach, Ivan Stewart, David Rostance, Craig Munday and finally Steve Davies from British Railway Photographs for permission to use their images.
EFE Rail Models
E87062 EFE Rail PRA China Clay Wagon RLS 6312 (Early)
E87063 EFE Rail PRA China Clay Wagon RLS 6311 (Early)
E87064 EFE Rail PRA China Clay Wagon RLS 6304 (Early) SOLD OUT
E87065 EFE Rail PRA China Clay Wagon RLS 6303 (Late) SOLD OUT
E87066 EFE Rail PRA China Clay Wagon RLS 6307 (Late)
E87067 EFE Rail PRA China Clay Wagon RLS 6310 (Late)
Models from the original KMRC batch: -
SB007A PRA China Clay Wagon (late) RLS6313 SOLD OUT
SB007B PRA China Clay Wagon (late) RLS6314 SOLD OUT
SB007C PRA China Clay Wagon (late) RLS6315 SOLD OUT
SB007D PRA China Clay Wagon (late) RLS6316 SOLD OUT
SB007E PRA China Clay Wagon (early) RLS6305 SOLD OUT
SB007F PRA China Clay Wagon (early) RLS6309 SOLD OUT
SB007G PRA China Clay Wagon (early) RLS6306 SOLD OUT
SB007H PRA China Clay Wagon (early) RLS6308 SOLD OUT
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