The Bristol Railway Archive

Was at pilning today and grabbed a pic of this 66 going through.



Does anyone know the nature of the load behind? I've seen this before but never got a pic of it. Two Container Flats with two OCA wagons acting as barrier vehicles. In previous occasions the containers are spaced apart by one empty contain location.

The containers have no branding on them, only black patches with detail information, unfortunatly was going too fast to read them. It did cross my mind this could be amunition being supplied to/from Bulwark across the Severn?

what time of day was the picture taken?

A time would have helped my original question

It would have been about 12:45 - 13:00

Rich_Eason wrote:A time would have helped my original question

It would have been about 12:45 - 13:00

If it was going West then it could well have been the 10:37 ex-Didcot yard-Wentloog MoD stores due Severn Tunnel around 12.55.

thanks for the gen Simon, I did wonder if it something along that nature as I thought it was odd seeing the container flats and the OCA combo.

Thanks again

Rich

Just by pure chance I managed to grab a shot of it on the return journey tonight, this time fully loaded with the containers and addional 4 wheeled container wagon (not seen before) and aforementioned OCAs as Barrier Wagons.

Definatly explosives being conveyed as there are clearly the warning stickers on the containers....also interesting to note (I thought so anyway! ) that the containers are loaded 90deg to the normal direction of standard ISO Containers.





Which leads to my second question - I thought this was banned from trafficing through the tunnel? They got twitchy about Class A fuel going through surely this will create as big of a bang?

Most of todays military explosives will only burn without a detonator and will not explode on impact so are very safe during transportation

ah well there you go then!

gwrmad wrote:Most of todays military explosives will only burn without a detonator and will not explode on impact so are very safe during transportation

So why the barrier wagons then?

The principle of barrier wagons I have always struggled with.

Whilst I clearly understand the principle of distancing the loco/driver (especially steam) from a hazard what odds will it make it if a trainload of class A fuel went up?

Prime example...

10 years ago you would have never seen a Nuclear flask train without barrier wagons both ends and a guards van.

Now they are marshalled right up against the loco no guards van.

So are the DRS loco cabs lined with 3inch lead to prevent exposure?!:shock:

Well it can still catch fire can't it !