HGR

SED Freightman : Thank You for those. Much appreciated.

Yes, agree also. There seem to be a few different strategies to implementing the updates that were distributed from 'Central' : 1, Follow the instructions on the notification letter, to remove and destroy the old / withdrawn pages and insert the newly issued pages. That's the intended way that the books were kept up-to-date. When these appear on the likes of eBay you get a snapshot of the issue state when the book was last updated. 2, Stuff the updates in the back of the book exactly as received, and put it back on the shelf to gather more dust. 3, Put the updated pages in the appropriate places but leave the superseded pages in. Either of the latter two techniques produce overly bloated books that still hold a wealth of interesting historical info. Maybe not how the modern TOPS AFC was meant to operate, but good for those of us interested in technical history / modelling the past. It's this first-issue diagrams that I'm interested in. I managed to get hold of Book 1 (groups B - F) and Book 2 (H - O), that are of the method 3 above, but still quite early issues. Not managed to get my hands on an early Book 3 (groups R - V) though, hence my request.

Enterprisingwestern : If you're talking of the TOPS guide - a pocket sized blue book handed out to freight staff, it was revised a number of times. I've got a 'pre-TOPS' version that lists the codes that were intended for the introduction of TOPS. By 1973 some of these had already been changed when the go-live date came. These books give the three-letter CARKND codes that are shown on the wagon data panel next to the vehicle number. The codes I'm looking for are the design codes that appear in the big A4 format diagram books (see Barrowmore MRG). The design code is for example SP005A which is the diagram page in the book. As you can see from SED Freightman's list the good old B.R. plate wagon evolved into a few different flavours of plates and runners in TOPS days. SED Freightman : Yes, thanks - that's the books. I've got Part 1 covering groups B - F, and Part 2 with groups H - O. The private owners in the P and T groups have their own books (orange covers). Part 3 of the B.R. vehicles should be groups R, S, U, V so copies of any of the diagrams in those four groups will be appreciated. It appears that TOPS didn't catch up with the specially constructed vehicles in group X or the service vehicles in Y or Z till much later.

FC, already aware of those thanks. They are the pre-TOPS B.R. diagrams. What I'm trying to do is see what the early TOPS diagrams were that superseded these in around 1974. The TOPS diagrams are more detailed from a technical content, whereas the earlier diagrams were more aimed at loading / gauging dimensions. It's not an exact one-to-one match as TOPS makes more of a distinction between brake types, suspension and other details that the earlier diagram book didn't so much worry about. Hence a number of different TOPS design codes will result from variants of the same original diagram. Also, the TOPS design codes include pre-nationalisation stock that remained extant at the introduction of TOPS.

Does anyone happen to have a copy of the British Railways Diagrams of Freight Stock (B) Part 3 ? Ideally an electronic scan / PDF that they could PM to me ? This is the version that was issued in the mid '70s when the wagons were first put on TOPS. Part 3 covers vehicle groups R onwards, including the vans in the V group. I'm looking for the diagrams that pre-date the recoding that was done in the '80s, so for example the multitude of obscure runners and such as cattle vans, the early 12T ventilated vans and vanwides. All the good old stuff that disappeared from BR in the '70s that I can just about remember ! Barrowmore has diagram books for the private owner (P) fleet of that vintage but not the corresponding B.R. stock (B) books, only later versions.

Sorry to jump back a long way, but this relates to a query I posted recently about the 1964 speed classification box. Has anyone got a copy of the list in the above mentioned minute please ?

Thanks for that. The speed classification number I seem to remember also could be above the otherwise empty box, instead of within. Still intrigued what the box with diagonal line indicates ?

XP rated vehicles had the XP brand moved to a box to the right of the vehicle number. Some other wagons had just the empty box - example many coal hoppers and mineral wagons. Others had no box at all. Some oddities were the BOILER EB set and COIL T wagons that had the box with a diagonal line. What was the significance of the diagonal line, the empty box or no box ? There was some sort of short lived use of numbers in these boxes as a train classification system. Does anyone have any details please ?