Home»All Photographs»Britain's Railway Wagons & other rolling stock»Private Owner Wagons»Private owner Power braked (modern) wagons post 1958»Petroleum, LPG and Bitumen wagons Tank wagons privately owned»ESSO 45t GLW Class A tank wagons - Chas Roberts built TTV TTA

In 1964 Esso introduced a fleet of 282 vacuum braked Class A tank wagons, 41 of which were built by Chas Roberts 6200 - 6240. There is a mystery about this batch, was the wheelbase 15ft or 16ft. The latter is on the diagrams, appears on a few of the wagons but usually the wagons use 15ft or the metric equivalent. To me, the suspension bracket does look to be nearer the headstocks than on the Pickering and Powell Dufryn built wagons.
The vacuum braking was unfortunate, for within a year or so BR began to require airbraking. Many of the wagons were fitted with new Bruninghaus suspension, and usually at the same time air braking. In 2012 many continue in use, possibly the oldest large fleet of wagons on BR.