What wagon is this?

[Ian_B]

Early last year the MOD made a trial move of military vehicles through the Channel tunnel, as reported in the Daily Telegraph. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/01/18/army-tests-sending-tanks-channel-tunnel-case-eastern-europe/

The wagon used to move the Challenger tank (normally outside the loading gauge for the UK) was a bogie flat wagon with 2 six wheel bogies. Does anyone have any idea what this wagon is? I doubt it a UK wagon, but couldn't discern anything else from the picture.

Ian_B

 

[Fat Controller]

I believe the wagon was a German-registered one, carried on two six-wheel bogies; the design seems to date from the second half of WW2, and was originally intended to transport the King-Tiger tank. 

[SED Freightman]

A former colleague has suggested it is a DB owned type Samms 710 wagon.

[Fat Controller]

The British Army on the Rhine used to have a fleet of WW2 Warflats, with extensions to widen the decks, new bogies and air-brakes, which had been used to take AFVs to and from Luneburg Heath Training Area. With the winding-down of BAOR, these wagons became redundant; 81 of them were sent to the engineers' sidings at Eurotunnel's Cheriton terminal. Here, they were loaded on to road trailers, and taken to various locations in the UK.

The Telegraph article suggested this was the first time AFVs had been transported through the Tunnel. In fact, during the Balkan conflict in the mid-1990s, a squadron of light tanks/ reconnaissance vehicles were sent by rail to Bari (Italy) for onward movement; rather than have them visible on flat wagons, they were loaded into ISO containers.

[Ian_B]

The British Army on the Rhine used to have a fleet of WW2 Warflats, with extensions to widen the decks, new bogies and air-brakes, which had been used to take AFVs to and from Luneburg Heath Training Area. With the winding-down of BAOR, these wagons became redundant; 81 of them were sent to the engineers' sidings at Eurotunnel's Cheriton terminal. Here, they were loaded on to road trailers, and taken to various locations in the UK.

The Telegraph article suggested this was the first time AFVs had been transported through the Tunnel. In fact, during the Balkan conflict in the mid-1990s, a squadron of light tanks/ reconnaissance vehicles were sent by rail to Bari (Italy) for onward movement; rather than have them visible on flat wagons, they were loaded into ISO containers.

 

This was the first time a Tank (which is outside the standard loading gauge) was sent by rail.

Ian_B