NEW MODEL ANNOUNCEMENT - DEMU SHOWCASE 2022

Cavalex Models and Ultimate Model Railways to release Orenstein & Koppel Yeoman bogie aggregate open box wagon IN OO.

Cavalex is teaming up with Ultimate Model Railways to produce the Orenstein & Koppel bogie aggregate open wagon in 4mm scale in OO scale.

History

The 61 wagons were built by Orenstein & Koppel at their Dortmund works in Germany and introduced in 1988, to meet the expanding business and upgrading of the Foster Yeoman Torr works quarry, for use out of Merehead stone terminal. They were designed to be as short as possible, to give the maximum payload in the shortest possible train length and were a similar size to the successful PTA wagons then in use by Foster Yeoman and ARC, as they were then known. A side door was required, to enable cleaning out to avoid contamination of different materials, but these were rarely used in practice, if at all!

Generally, for design and build purposes they were to run in blocks of 10 wagons, with two outer wagons and 8 inner wagons, but in reality blocks could be any number, depending on depot size and payload required. At some depots the trains had to be split for unloading and reconnected afterwards.

The first two wagons built, both outers, were subject to rigorous type testing before the wagon design was accepted to run on BR metals. The bogie, the O&K 25-100, was new to the UK and resulted in the wagons being restricted to 45mph fully loaded, but this was not a problem with the long, heavy trains being run by Foster Yeoman, so the wagons entered service as soon as they arrived!

The TOPS code was changed in 1990 to JYA, but took some time to appear on all wagons.

The wagons proved very successful, both in operation and maintenance and, although designed for a 20 year life, are still in operation today.

There has been one livery change, around 1997, when the original side plates with the word YEOMAN and big Y logo on were removed from all wagons and replaced with a single plate, which had the Y logo and YEOMAN name on the same plate. The basic Silver grey colour has remained (apart from repair repaints which were mainly grey) but the logo plates have been gradually removed over the years, leaving the wagons looking decidedly grubby in appearance!

The model is already significantly advanced and at the tooling stage of the process.

Deliveries are expected during Q4 2023.

The Cavalex PHA/JYA wagons will be produced to the same high standard of finish as the highly regarded PGA and recently arrived TEA bogie tank wagons and will incorporate similar levels of detail.

Both inner and outer wagons have been modelled