Hornby OTA Timber Carrier
A completely new wagon, carried over from last year, is an OTA timber carrier. The actual wagons were built to transport timber to paper mills that was cut in the Scottish Highlands. Many ran in the livery of the paper company hiring the wagon, while others were in Railfreight red livery passing eventually to EWS. When built in the 1980s, most made use of the chassis of redundant air-braked open wagons (OCA) and, later on, the chassis of VDA vans. Various batches were built and a variety of designs may be found, particularly regarding the number and arrangement of the stanchions. Hornby have modelled two types.
Six versions of the model were initially planned by Hornby and these are based on converted OCA open wagons and retain the original end walls but extended upwards. The type modelled has the upper corners of these walls angled. The OTAs planned by Bachmann will be ones converted from VDA vans. The three recently released by Hornby are in Thames Board turquoise livery, with white stanchions, and their numbers are 112317 (R6469), 112182 (R6470) and 112338 (R6471).