Afternoon all!

Having built up a s0lid baseline motive power inventory for this scenario in recent months (though some additions might yet turn out to be, shall we say, desirable ), I recently devoted some time to investigating likely choices for the freight stock which I'd expect to feature most heavily. My impression of traffic patterns on the Pajares Line so far seems to indicate that a fair share of freight traffic there appears to be steel coil services, so I thought that obtaining some suitable wagons should be among my upper priorities for the next few months.

Mercancías 251-011 Renfe by Juanjo Rodríguez, auf Flickr

Mercancías 251-021 Renfe by Juanjo Rodríguez, auf Flickr

Aside from the Shimmns⁷⁰⁸ type (including subtypes) wagons with solid sliding hoods, much of the steel coil stock used by Renfe across this line seems to comprise the various iterations of the Shimms type coil carriers (and related subtypes), which are equipped with flexible sliding tarpaulin hoods but can also appear with the end bulkheads and tarps entirely removed. For a broad outline and general specifications of this range of wagons, also seen in the first of the above Flickr photos, I could, for example, refer you to http://www.dybas.de/dybas/gw/gw_s_7/g718.htmlwhich describes the related Shimmns(-tu) ^718'' type wagon.

For understanding the plethora of UIC classification codes for wagons, I could refer you to the English Wikipedia article. Sticking with the example of coil carriers we've been looking at, decoding the classification group tells us that this wagon is:

• S – special flat wagon with bogies
  
• h – for carrying sheet metal coils laid horizontally
  
• i – with fixed end bulkheads and movable top cover
  
• mm – loading length greater than 15 m
  
• (n – maximum load on Class C route greater than 60 tonnes)
  
• s – certified for 100 kph
  

Having found out that suitable H0 scale models providing a generally appropriate representation of these wagons in Renfe guise have been brought forth by Piko and Roco, I went on to find out that the Piko model was currently unavailable and that the most recent iteration of the Roco model was available only in limited quantities and from a small number of those suppliers I am aware of…so piecing together a sufficient number of these wagons would require me to tap into several different sources.

Intending to eventually re-letter these wagons with individual running numbers, and to also treat them to some (hopefully) suitable weathering as per the prototype photos from the "dybas" site, I'm currently awaiting an initial handful of this model:

Roco 67547

…which, come autumn this year, will be supplemented by several of these:

Roco 67314

Roco 67315

Though I suppose that with my not having access to an overview of the precise ranges of running numbers in existence for these wagons on Renfe's inventory (and not yet knowing whether there might be any such roster on the 'web), I might need to "invent" plausible numbers. I suppose that but would be good enough!