1

TEA (BOC) - Bogie Cryogenic Tank Wagon Project

Research: Ray Beatson

September 2015

Special Thanks to Paul Bartlett

Edition: 06/08/2017 14:42

2

T TOPS - Number range 84601 – 84640

British Oxygen had a fleet of tank wagons carrying a range of compressed and refrigerated gasses. These tanks are in BOC livery, basically a white tank with the

'compress gas' orange stripe round the body and with the BOC logo applied in orange.

Fissons the fertiliser people also operated similar tank wagons for carrying ammonia to their fertiliser plants but after they were taken over by Norsk Hydro in 1982

these were repainted in Norsk Hydro livery.

The British Oxygen Co. ran a fleet of 27 cryogenic tank wagons from Middlesborough and Widnes. Built by Charles Robets (Wakefield ) in 1970 they ran until the late

1990s and could be found in small numbers at many industrial locations and wagon load yards where they could be unloaded directly into road delivery vehicles. The

fleet could be used for either nitrogen or oxygen and were carried on either Gloucester cast or GPS bogies. An article with drawings is in Rail Express Modeller

Supplement no. 7 November 2004.

Gloucester Cast Bogies

GPS bogies

3

That is what is called a paddy waggon next to 0002 and which are still used by BOC mainly for emptying customer tanks etc.

BOC84602 Liquid Nitrogen Regd BRB 851 1970 [2]

4

5

6

7

8

9

Charles Roberts and Coof Horbury Junction, near Wakefield

1856 Company established.

1899 The company was registered on 13 April, to acquire the business of wagon manufacturers of a company of the same name

1914 Builders of railway wagons of all descriptions, steel hopper wagons, railway tank wagons, manufacturers of wheels and axles, ironwork, castings; railway wagon

repairers.

1967 Kirkstall Forge Engineering acquired the pressed axle casing business of Charles Roberts and Co of Wakefield

1973 Charles Roberts and Co agreed to acquire from Butterfield-Harvey Group the assets and undertaking (apart from property) of W. P. Butterfield (Engineers) of

Shipley to make a major force in the road tanker industry

10

37166 & 37252 double-head an up train of BOC tankers, bogie tank wagons at Doncaster - 24/12/1981.

11

31225 passing Parker's Bridge, Coppenhall near Crewe with a short train of BOC tankers. 30th September 1988

12

Brush type 4 (class 47) 1767 (later numbered 47172) BR Two-Tone Green liveried approaches York (Holgate Junction)

With a northbound train of BOC oxygen tankers - c.03/1973.

Note the VAA van in use as a barrier vehicle. There was a similar vehicle at the rear of this train.

13

47324 on BOC tankers at Guide Bridge on 13/04/82

14

View of the northbound train of BOC oxygen tankers at Holgate Junction York - c.03/1973.This features the BOC VAA barrier

vehicle (lettered Van AB, but number not discernable) at the rear of this train.

15

Changes since the 1970's

There have been three significant changes to the movement of dangerous goods by rail since the later 1970's, all of these have reduced chemical traffic carried by rail.

The Health & Safety Executive decided, I think in the 1980's, that companies should only store small amounts of dangerous chemicals on their premises. This change

in the law favoured frequent movements of smaller quantities and this encouraged a change to road haulage rather than rail transport. As a result there has been a

shift from relatively safe rail transportation of dangerous goods in bulk to moving them in small but still deadly quantities on less well regulated roads.

On the continent the movement of dangerous goods by rail is commonplace but dangerous goods are not allowed through the channel tunnel. The regular rail traffic

in acids and other dangerous chemicals which used to cross the channel on the train ferries has ceased. These chemicals are now moved on road tank wagons which

cross over on the ro-ro ferries and trundle on over-crowded roads through densely populated areas crushing the Victorian sewers beneath.

The third major change has been the government sponsored shift away from manufacturing industry toward a 'service' economy. This naturally resulted in a reduced

demand for chemicals, for example steel works required large quantities of acids to remove the scale on the newly made steel. The closure of so many of the former

British Steel works has also meant a reduction in the transport of bulk liquid oxygen.

Rail Express - November 2004

XVI D&E Files: BOC cryogenic tanks

Wagon histories complete with scale drawings. The British Oxygen bogie tanks that month’s subject matter

16

TOPS codes - the ones painted on the wagons, at least – are not supposed to do anything more than identify the vehicle in very general, operational terms. The

"TEA" code applies to any bogie tank wagon with a gross laden weight over 100 tonnes and air brakes.

There was a range of wagons that could carry that code and differences in the density of the load for which they were designed could result in substantial

differences in size. There were a couple of types of sulphuric acid tanks, for instance, that were coded TEA but were much shorter than the typical TEA

petroleum tanks (which is what all RTR bogie tanks are).

17

The BOC cryogenic tanks were the subject of an article and drawing in Rail Express no. 102 (November 2004) and I dare say that they're included in one of the

diagram books on the Barrowmore MRG website

VAA Barrier Van

Liquid Oxygen

BOC had an arrangement with British Steel to supply tankers of oxygen to the steel works when the on-site oxygen making apparatus was under repair or

maintenance. They used tankers similar to the Graham Farish bogie tank for this work (see Rolling Stock Design- Tank Wagons for details of the modifications

required). I believe the service involved as few as two tank loads at a time, presumably shifted in Speedlink as a block load, but these may well have been tagged onto

the block load working to the steel works for final delivery. Oxygen is classed (I believe) as an explosive and required vans as barrier vehicles. BOC had at least one

VAA van in BOC livery, there is a photograph of this vehicle taken in 1973 on John Turner's excellent website (see App 7 Useful Links).

BOC Barrier Van

18

Hazchem Signs

Changes in policy during the 1960's produced a number of companies owning tank wagons which were hired out to the oil companies as required. In about 1974

logo's were removed from the wagons, although I have seen a photograph of a BP tanker bearing a small stick-on BP shield pasted above the data and warning panels

at the left hand end of the tank in November 1984.

The introduction of TOPS meant that all vehicles had to have their owner identified (rather than just the firm using the vehicle), a small yellow plate was therefore

added to the left hand end of the solebar to identify the owning company and the individual wagon number. These plates were all in place by 1970 but the older

wagon numbers remained painted on the sides of the tanks, for example United Molasses owned their tanks and had numbers prefixed UM but they still had the

yellow TOPS plate on the chassis. The `Hazchem' warning panels were first introduced on British Rail in the mid 1970's (about 1975 or 76 I believe), and these days

they provide a welcome splash of colour to the lower left of the tank body or (less commonly) painted on a plate fitted to the chassis.

The new edition of the highway code may contain coloured illustrations of the standard Hazchem symbols. The numbers and letters in the upper box give the

emergency services vital information on what equipment is required to deal with a leak or fire. 1 means a water jet can be used, 2 means a water 'fog' can be used, 3

means foam should be used and 4 means a dry powder fire extinguisher should be used. There are usually two letters, the first tells you if you need to wear protective

equipment, the second tells you what you need to do to deal with a leak (dilute it or contain it), the combination also tells you whether a 'violent reaction' is a

possible hazard. The letters used are P, R, S, T, W, X, Y and Z. The number in the middle box in the 'United Nations' official number for the chemical being carried. The

bottom box is the emergency contact name and telephone number and in the small box beside it appears the contact company name. Examples of Hazchem data of

interest to model makers include: 2PE/1073 oxygen 2PE/1005 ammonia, 2RE/1013 carbon dioxide, 2PE/1230 methanol, 2P/2789 acetic acid, 3R/1802 phosphoric

acid, 2R/1798 hydrochloric acid. Although bitumen is normally solid in transit it is flammable and when carried by road it is required to display 2W/7033.

After about 1974 cleaning of oil tank wagons was generally discontinued, so Class B tanks often have heavy dark staining on their sides round the filling domes and the

class A tanks have lighter coloured stains streaking their bodies in the same areas.

Pressurised gas tank wagons first appeared in the 1950's and have been built on both bogie and four wheeled chassis. Large tank wagons for carrying ammonia,

nitrogen, oxygen, chlorine and carbon dioxide, appeared in the 1960's. These tanks, and chemical tankers carrying volatile liquids which give off a vapour such as

hydro cyanic acid (HCN), all have a white or very light grey body. The original 1950s markings included yellow and red stripes on the lower sides with a red rectangle

with yellow centre wrapped round the corners at each end. These tanks received a sun shield in 1952 and by the mid 1950s the rectangular ferry plate was in use on

the left hand end of the solebars

19