Railfreight red and grey on planked vans?

[Bickersgate]

Hello All, 

 

While browsing the forums I'm sure I have seen a picture of a planked 12t van in railfreight red and grey at a platform/in a bay.  

 

Was I having a slight hallucination?  Or was railfreight livery applied to any non air braked vans? Or could this be a standard van that was upgraded to air brake? 

 

I have also raked Paul bartlett's site and can't see anything like it there.  Can anyone put me out of my misery? 

[Mark Forrest]

Not planked, but at least with the look of a traditional 12T vent van were the VEA air braked vanwides which ran in Railfreight livery:

https://paulbartlett.zenfolio.com/vea

 

If the photo you you were thinking of was black and white, could you have mistaken it for one of these?

https://paulbartlett.zenfolio.com/standardabvan

 

 

[black and decker boy]

Peco did (May still) make a 12T van in Railfreight red / grey.

 

i have no proof there was a matching one in 12 inch : 1ft

[black and decker boy]

There are also the Railfreight stores van (turquoise & grey) by Farish.

 

i have found a prototype for these

 

https://paulbartlett.zenfolio.com/standardabvan/h12bcf6c0

 

in black & white photo, these would look the same as red & grey

[SM42]

There were some standard vans that were converted to air brake. The stores van mentioned above by Black and Decker boy being an example.

 

However there was more to it than just changing the brake system. The whole suspension was changed too, in a similar fashion to the Vanwides that were converted to run in the Speedlink / Railfreight red grey era.

 

Not seen any in red  an grey though, but they may have been some.

 

The main indicator of livery in a B&W photo (I think, but can't be sure)  would be what is says on the side. The grey and turquoise I believe had Rail Stores rather than Railfreight

 

Andy

Edited June 11, 2020 by SM42

[John M Upton]

I believe the Peco 12t van is a neverwazzar in that livery and indeed possibly any livery.

[BernardTPM]

That van is close to several designs of insulated van but the particular combination of various details make it generic rather than one specific design.

[Bickersgate]

Sorry for the late reply, thanks to everyone who has given information. All very useful! 

 

I may very well be getting confused with the rail stores vans in black and white pictures. They look more like what I was thinking of. 

 

Also those peco/Dapol efforts muddy the waters of reality somewhat! 

[Swindon 123]

For the early air braking trials, a number of 12t vans, mostly the planked body with ply doors or all ply bodies examples, along with some Palvans and steel opens were fitted with air brakes and new suspension as on the later VEA's. Paul Bartlett's site has photos of many of them, mainly when they went into departmental use. I managed to capture one of them in departmental use at Bescot in 1986, and it can be seen here on my Flickr site.  

 

Paul J.