BR’S ferry vans

When constructed in 1962/63, British Railways’ ferry vans were a radical departure from its domestic fleet of 12-ton goods vans, being heavily inspired by continental practice. Rated to carry 20tons, 400 examples were built, with construction split between Pressed Steel (B786873-B787022) and Ashford Works (B787098-B787347). All were assigned to diagram 1/227 and featured an overall length of just under 42 feet, with a wheelbase of just over 26 feet. The vans were dual-braked from new with plywood cladding and a door aperture of 13 feet. RIV numbers were applied between 1964 and 1968 following the introduction of this

Europe-wide system but with the BR numbers also still retained on the builder’s plate if not on the body. Their use on international traffic rapidly declined from the late 1970s as modern bogie ferry vans with vastly greater capacity were introduced and the BR ferry vans, now coded VIX on TOPS, ceased to travel to the continent early in the 1980s.

However, as dual-braked vehicles, the vans were still useful on domestic traffic, with some redeployed as barriers on dangerous goods traffic such as chemical, munitions and nuclear flask trains until the early 1990s in some cases.

Others had their bodywork removed for use as under-runners on overhanging steel loads. A number passed into departmental roles, primarily as stores vans, but some were extensively rebuilt as mess vans to work with track machines or with low-height sides as short-lived ballast wagons. During the 1990s, a number were sold to the Ministry of Defence and refurbished, seeing use on the internal systems at the likes of Bicester, although plans to register them for main line use never came to fruition. The last survivors were withdrawn in the late 1990s from their roles as track machine support wagons.