30 ton Ballast & Spoil Open Wagon. 'Tope'.
DETAILS FOR THIS VEHICLE.
Location : York Leeman Road CCE Yard.
Date : 09/04/1990.
Type : Open Ballast/Spoil Wagon.
Weight : 30t GLW, 9t Tare.
Number : DB 970026.
Number Series : DB 970000 to DB 970059.
Builder : 1987-88 by RFS Industries Ltd, Doncaster.
TOPS Code : ZDV (later changed to ZCV).
Fishkind Code : TOPE.
Design Code : ZC003A.
ADDITIONAL NOTES.
With large numbers of vacuum braked HTV coal hoppers being declared surplus in the mid to late 1980's the BR Engineers Department took large numbers that would otherwise have gone for scrap. Because of the sheer numbers of vehicles involved most were promptly stored all over the country pending possible reuse. On a positive side they were braked vehicles rather than unfitted and many had roller bearings plus the underframes were on a reasonable 12ft length wheelbase. The driving factor was it would allow BR to eliminate remaining unfitted engineers stock.
BR came up with three variants for civil engineers use and issued new numbers in the DB 97xxxx range rather than retain original numbers with changed prefixes. The "new" wagon types were the 'Rudd' which was an updated version of the Grampus with drop side doors, the 'Clam' which was a solid open box body for new stone and finally the 'Tope' which was just a cut down coal hopper with the hopper discharge handles removed.
It's not unfair to describe the 'Tope' as the "Turkey" of the conversion programme, BR proposed a fleet of 2000 of them as they were a much simpler and cheaper conversion from the standard HTV hopper. The bodywork was lowered in height to reduce overloading risk and end guard plates were added to reduce spillage over the buffers when loading. The hopper doors remained in situ but were sealed shut and their operating handles removed and that was it. Their Achilles heel was the fact they retained the hopper body shape with sloping sides and ends, this made it impossible to empty the wagon with a conventional clam shell grab or digger bucket. The bodywork would get badly misshaped or punctured and a fair part of the load was not reachable in the hopper bottom. As a result most were used purely to carry waste ballast spoil rather than dual use with new stone as new stone could get contaminated from a previous spoil load. None the less BR managed to convert 815 HTV's into ZCV 'Tope' before halting the conversion programme.
The wagon depicted was ex HTV no. B 425714 and is from the first batch converted by RFS Industries Ltd and initially entered traffic with a ZDV TOPS Code which was what had been used when the vehicles still had their HTV running numbers but had been transferred to the engineers fleet for storage (i.e. DB 425714 ZDV). This was soon changed to ZCV although many from the first batch of 60 ran around with ZDV still on them, a hasty repaint of the D to a C is visible on this one.
30 ton Ballast & Spoil Open Wagon. 'Tope'.
DETAILS FOR THIS VEHICLE.
Location : York Leeman Road CCE Yard.
Date : 09/04/1990.
Type : Open Ballast/Spoil Wagon.
Weight : 30t GLW, 9t Tare.
Number : DB 970026.
Number Series : DB 970000 to DB 970059.
Builder : 1987-88 by RFS Industries Ltd, Doncaster.
TOPS Code : ZDV (later changed to ZCV).
Fishkind Code : TOPE.
Design Code : ZC003A.
ADDITIONAL NOTES.
With large numbers of vacuum braked HTV coal hoppers being declared surplus in the mid to late 1980's the BR Engineers Department took large numbers that would otherwise have gone for scrap. Because of the sheer numbers of vehicles involved most were promptly stored all over the country pending possible reuse. On a positive side they were braked vehicles rather than unfitted and many had roller bearings plus the underframes were on a reasonable 12ft length wheelbase. The driving factor was it would allow BR to eliminate remaining unfitted engineers stock.
BR came up with three variants for civil engineers use and issued new numbers in the DB 97xxxx range rather than retain original numbers with changed prefixes. The "new" wagon types were the 'Rudd' which was an updated version of the Grampus with drop side doors, the 'Clam' which was a solid open box body for new stone and finally the 'Tope' which was just a cut down coal hopper with the hopper discharge handles removed.
It's not unfair to describe the 'Tope' as the "Turkey" of the conversion programme, BR proposed a fleet of 2000 of them as they were a much simpler and cheaper conversion from the standard HTV hopper. The bodywork was lowered in height to reduce overloading risk and end guard plates were added to reduce spillage over the buffers when loading. The hopper doors remained in situ but were sealed shut and their operating handles removed and that was it. Their Achilles heel was the fact they retained the hopper body shape with sloping sides and ends, this made it impossible to empty the wagon with a conventional clam shell grab or digger bucket. The bodywork would get badly misshaped or punctured and a fair part of the load was not reachable in the hopper bottom. As a result most were used purely to carry waste ballast spoil rather than dual use with new stone as new stone could get contaminated from a previous spoil load. None the less BR managed to convert 815 HTV's into ZCV 'Tope' before halting the conversion programme.
The wagon depicted was ex HTV no. B 425714 and is from the first batch converted by RFS Industries Ltd and initially entered traffic with a ZDV TOPS Code which was what had been used when the vehicles still had their HTV running numbers but had been transferred to the engineers fleet for storage (i.e. DB 425714 ZDV). This was soon changed to ZCV although many from the first batch of 60 ran around with ZDV still on them, a hasty repaint of the D to a C is visible on this one.