Revolution Trains is offering BR’s distinctive ‘fishbelly’ Borail wagons, and their air-braked engineer’s derivatives, the Mullet, Parr and Super Tench, as its next wagons in both 00 and N.
From 1959 British Railways built a total of 165 flat wagons – some with bolsters (Borail B) and some without (Borail C) for carrying concrete beams, girders, lengths of rail and other heavy loads. The wagons had 8’ plateback bogies and vacuum brakes, and solid fishbelly underframes, rather than traditional trusses, for strength.
The wagons were exceptionally useful, and in 1981 most of the fleet was rebuilt with air brakes, new Y25 bogies, revised decks with tensioning ratchets and recoded BRA under TOPS.
After a short period on steel traffic in the Speedlink network, most were transferred to the civil engineers and given new TOPS codes and fishkind names YLA Mullet (with bolsters) and YQA Parr (with longitudinal baulks for sleepers).
In 2010 some YQA Parr wagons were refurbished and fitted with ISO modules with drop down side mesh doors. They retained the YQA code but were renamed Super Tench. Many remain in service in 2021, 60 years after they were built.
The Revolution models will feature NEM couplers, our usual levels of accuracy with prototypical variations in bogies and brake equipment and numerous separate wire, plastic and photo-etched parts where appropriate.
All versions will be available to pre-order via the Revolution website for a limited time at a low Early-Bird price, which will increase in due course.
CAD work is done and first samples are expected shortly. The models are expected to be ready to ship in Q1-2 2022, though exact scheduling is difficult at this time.
For more information visit the Revolution Trains website