Letters
I would like to thank David Hayes for his positive feedback in TRACTION 268 regarding my article about some of the trains I worked between Birmingham and Crewe and his accompanying picture of 47732 at Ryecroft Junction. Hopefully l can offer a little more information regarding the ‘X’ classification headcodes used on these trains.
As David correctly points out in his letter the X headcode does refer to an ‘ out-of-gauge’ load , when certain types of vehicles (e.g. larger type SUVs or vehicles with roof racks etc) were loaded onto the top deck of IPA twin car wagons they became slightly out of gauge and so generated additional speed restrictions along the route when passing under certain lineside structures . As a driver when working trains that were out of gauge or contained heavy axle weights, as well as your TOPS list/driver’s slip which contains details of your train speed/ weight/ length/ brakeforce/ dangerous goods etc. you were issued with additional paperwork giving locations and additional speed restrictions that applied for the route over which you were working. For example these could be low overbridges, station canopies for out of gauge loads and in the case of heavy axle weights the locations of certain under bridges and viaducts etc. that needed to be crossed at a reduced speed to avoid damage to the structure itself. The issue of being classed as out-of-gauge was mostly an problem when conveying lPA wagons as the WIA wagons were completely covered so always within the same gauge. As David correctly points out the WIA wagons were mainly intended for Channel Tunnel automotive flows. However, whilst looking through my driver’s log books l recalled an interesting turn which l worked on Friday 10th November 1995 with the very appropriately named 47326 ‘Saltley Depot’ on 6G63 10:47 Washwood Heath to Longbridge. The train consist was of a single WIA car wagon and l believe this is the only occasion that a wagon of this type was ever worked into the Longbridge car plant. The wagon was sent to Longbridge to see if they would be suitable on flows out of Longbridge. However, the nature of the track work within the works which contained lots of tight curvatures proved unsuitable for this type of wagon and the more traditional Cartic 4 and IPAs continued on these flows .
The MAT Cartic 4 wagons were the mainstay on the car trains in and out of Longbridge for many years and trains formed of up to ten Cartics of almost 100 SLUs (a single standard length unit is 21 feet and used as a measurement of train length) were commonplace on 53 Trip, which dur
