Tank wagon traffic to TMDs

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The 1980s and 1990s saw Traction Maintenance Depots continue to receive fuel deliveries and, to a lesser extent, other fluids by rail.

However, as privatisation took hold, such traffic went into terminal decline as road transport became more cost effective.

David Ratcliffe profiles an assortment of tank wagons that could be found on depots during this period and which could easily fill a corner of a layout.

More images in Modeller’s D&E Files in the June issue of RE – on sale now!

Less than five months from withdrawal, a magnificently scruffy No. 47467 passes Wychnor Junction on August 1, 1998, with the 6E96/13.51 Warrington Arpley-Lindsey Oil Refinery. In tow are 12 TTAs and one TUA, the discharged tankers returning to Humberside to be refilled with diesel fuel or, to give it the correct name in rail parlance, traction gas oil (TGO). Illustrating the rather uneconomic nature of the traffic, the outward 6M98 working had left Lindsey much earlier that day, touring the EWS depots at Toton, Leicester, Bescot, Crewe and Warrington, dropping off loaded tankers and collecting empties as it went. The motley collection of tankers is also noteworthy with ex Esso, Total and BP examples in evidence. Gareth Bayer

 


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