Rapido Trains UK announce LBSC D8 Covered Vans and GER D17 5 Plank and D48 7 Plank Open Wagons.

Contributed by: Graham Muspratt

29 Nov 2024 00:00am

Rapido Trains UK announce London Brighton & South Coast (LBSC) D8 Covered Vans (SR Diagram 1433) and Great Eastern Railway (GER) Diagram 17 5 Plank and Diagram 48 7 Plank Open Wagons.

The LBSC D8, later SR Diagram 1433 8 ton covered vans with 9’ 9” wheelbase and an overall length of 18’ 4”, were built between 1878 and 1915 with some variations in planking, ventilators, louvers and brake gear ending up with SR Freighter style. Approximately 430 D1433 vans entered SR stock with many ending up in departmental service during the 1930s. Nearly 50 LBSC covered vans, including some D1434 and D1436 (a 10 ton version of the D1433) were transferred to the Isle of Wight where many remained in service until the early 1950s, with a small number lasting to the end of steam in 1966.
British Railways had several examples of Diagram 1433 still in service when the railways were nationalised in 1948. Most were used as Departmental vans, one of which was allocated to the Chief Mechanical Engineer at Ashford Works. Despite their age, several examples avoided the scrap yard and made it into preservation. All three now reside at appropriately Southern locations, the Bluebell Railway, the Isle of Wight Steam Railway and Chatham Dockyard.
LBSC D8 SR D1433 Covered Vans
Eighteen different versions are being produced of the LBSC D8 SR D1433 Covered vans per the image above, and can be pre ordered here>>>

These LBSC D1433 vans will compliment the Kernow Model Rail Centre LBSC Diagram 1369 & 1364 five plank open wagon range in 00 Gauge that have now arrived at Southampton. Click here to order. 


Designed to replace the ageing 8-ton and 9-ton timber framed wagons of the 1870s and 1880s, the Diagram 17s were a robust steel framed 5-plank wagon with a 9ft wheelbase, a set of doors on either side and an improved 10-ton load capacity. 12,050 were built between 1893 and 1903.

Wagons of the same design were built for the Lancashire, Derbyshire and East Coast Railway by outside contractors. In 1907 the LD&ECR was absorbed by the Great Central Railway, which acquired all of the company’s rolling stock, including those built to the GER design. Under their new owner, the wagons were repainted in the GCR livery and given new running numbers accordingly.

In early 1903 while wagons of the final order of Diagram 17 were under construction, the GER was busy preparing a new 7-plank design with both an increased carrying capacity and an improved load retention for low-weight but high-volume goods. 1300 D48 wagons were built by 1908, an additional 650 wagons were converted to Diagram 48 from earlier 5-plank designs between 1904 and 1911.

Most of these wagons survived through to the grouping era, and under LNER ownership More than 400 of the wagons survived Nationalisation, but increasingly their twilight years were spent allocated to major depots and yards in the Eastern region as internal use wagons, or in Departmental service serving a wide variety of roles including Signal & Telegraph, Permanent Way and even breakdown trains. Although the final examples had disappeared from revenue service by the mid-1950s, the Departmental and internal user wagons soldiered on into the 1960s.

GER D17 5 Plank Open Wagons
Eighteen different versions are being produced of the GER D17 5 plank open wagons per the image above, and can be pre ordered here>>>

GER D48 7 Plank Open Wagons
Seventeen different versions are being produced of the GER D48 7 Plank open wagons per the image above, and can be pre ordered here>>>

Subject to alteration.

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