CAVALEX MODELS AND RAILS OF SHEFFIELD TO RELEASE POWELL DUFFRYN PXA STEEL COIL CARRIER AND JXA SCRAP WAGON IN OO.

 PXA steel coil carrier

In 1986 Powell Duffryn started building a fleet of fifty-four (54), 101 tonne Gross Laiden Weight, Steel Coil Carrying wagons. These wagons consisted of a solid frame with a ribbed moveable tarpaulin cover to protect the product inside. The Floor of the wagon could house coils loaded eye to the sky or eye to the end depending on where the train was loaded and the destination for discharge. The 54 wagons gained the carkind code on British Rail’s Total Operations Processing Systerm or TOPS, as PXA with design codes of PX044A and PX044B. Powell Duffryn hired the wagons to British Steel to bolster its existing fleet of hired in wagons that the company had on long-term hire from VTG.

The wagons entered squadron service in 1986 operating out of the South Wales steel making plants at Port Talbot, Trostre, Llanwern and Ebbw Vale. The product conveyed in the wagons was either rolled tinplate or cold reduced steel coil. The cold reduced steel coil was initially transported to receiving plants at Dee Marsh, Round Oak, Brierley Hill and Swindon. In some cases, the tin plate would be combined with the Round Oak trains with the tinplate being dropped off at the Metal Box Company private siding at Worcester and the other PXA’s loaded with tinplate used the Speedlink Network to serve other Metal Box sites at Wisbeach and Carlisle. Later, both these locations were served by detaching wagons off of the Railfreight Metals services from South Wales to Scotland and Whitemoor respectively. In 1989, the Poole based Shipper and Shipping agent John Carter hired five of the wagons for the movement of cold reduced coil from Hamworthy to Swindon to supply the automotive industry.

At the change of the decade from the 1980s to the 1990’s, a number of internal changes had occurred at British Steel and this sadly saw the plant at Ravescriag closed which caused a reduction in volume from South Wales to Scotland and Dee Marsh as a result. Following the reduction in traffic and demand, the wagon fleets were adjusted and wagons that were on hire were in turn leased back to the wagon owners. The current owners did find new work for a small number of the PXA’s that were off lease with the wagons being employment on traffic out of Boston and Kings Lynn Docks bringing in imported steel coils to West Midlands steel terminals at Round Oak and Brierly Hill, and Wolverhampton.

The Trainload Metals sector was successful in gaining new work with flows to Hull for the movement of steel coils for export to South Africa. This was in addition to another new flow to Fogarty’s Distrubuton at Blackburn. As this new service was not sufficiently large enough to warrant a full trainload, this traffic was moved on booked services via Tees Yard to get the wagons to Blackburn!

As Privatisation loomed and the railway entered the Private Sector, the PXA wagons largely plied the traffic flows in the same way that they had before the three shadow freight companies Load Haul, Mainliine Freight & Transrail had come into being. The majority of traffic flows for the wagons were rooted deep into Transrail’s area of operation and that is how they remained being moved on Transrail services again to Dee Marsh and the West Midland’s outposts of Wolverhampton, Round Oak & Breirley Hill.

The traffic to and from Boston had ceased but reopened again when the newly formed English Welsh and Scottish Railway’s won new traffic for the transportation of coil from Boston to Round Oak. Again, the PXA wagons were utilised along with some other private owner covered wagon types with the former providing the back bone of the fleet on that flow. The wagons delivered short-term flows of steel from South Wales to the inland Port of Goole on behalf of the shipper Torr Line.

With EWS developing and aggressively marketing its wagonload Network that it had inherited from Transrail, the company along with British Steel; the PXA wagons main leaser, used this network to deliver one-off consignments of coils and also volumes that were less than trainload consignments consisting of coils to various customers all over the UK and Scotland. The wagons continued to work on unassuming as they had done since being built, working core flows for British Steel which itself had now passed into the private sector and had been merged with the Dutch company Koninklijke Hoogovens to become Corus Steel. The PXA’s carried on in traffic until they were eventually replaced by more modern privately owned wagons, this time in the form of IHA wagons. The last PXA wagon remained on TOPS until January 2007.

JXA bogie scrap wagon

In 1972 a new steel works was opened at Sheerness on the Isle of Sheppey, in Kent. The new site at Sheerness was built to produce steel to be made from scrap metal using the Electric Arc Furnace method instead of the more conventional smelting of iron ore in the Basic oxygen steelmaking process.

This was seen as an effective and efficient way to boost steel production by utilising scrap metal from the south east of England.

The delivery of scrap metal to supply the EAF arrived by sea and also by rail, with the latter using 16t mineral wagons. In 1981 it became clear that the aging 16t mineral wagons needed replacing which led to the conversion of four bogie steel wagons, originally built by Procor in 1974 for steel traffic emanating from Sheerness, to bogie box wagons for scrap traffic with a further four following suit in 1985.

Following the successful conversion of the four steel wagons, a brand-new fleet of purpose-built box wagons dedicated to this traffic were constructed as volumes increased. Over the ensuing years, rail capacity to meet the rising demand subsequently followed suit with more scrap wagons being built.

Consignments of scrap metal to the Electric Arch Furnace at Sheerness originated from scrap yards mainly located in the Southeast at such places like Snailwell, Silvertown, Willesden and Ridham Dock. The flows from Snailwell and Ridham Dock were carried in block trainloads, the traffic from Silvertown and Willesden at first used British Rail’s Speedlink wagonload network. Co-Steel, the owner of Sheerness steel works, was at the time a big user of this network and dispatched small numbers of wagons to such far flung locations as Bilson Glenn in the West Midlands, Workington in Cumbria and Shipley near Bradford in West Yorkshire. To keep the Electric Arch Furnace going, this arrangement of moving scrap on wagonload trunk and trip services lasted until the demise of Speedlink in 1991, after this time, Sheerness received its scrap in block trainload services from Snailwell and Willesden.

In 1994 Tiphook Rail placed an order with RFS(E) Ltd for the conversion of 38 of the Powell Duffryn PXA (latterly JSA) steel coil wagons to scrap box wagons for use on Sheerness Steel traffic. Design code was JX031B and TOPS code JXA. The first wagon converted was PDUF3043, which was completed on 12th February 1995 as number TIPH 3043, with a Tiphook blue box and the original GPS25 bogies painted yellow. The wagon went to Derby RTC for testing, after which the conversions continued. Numbers were TIPH 3008 to 3024 and 3042 to 3062, completed by the end of 1995.

The 17 unconverted wagons, PDUF 3025 to 3041, remained in use on the Llanwern to Ebbw Vale traffic until around 2003/4.

In the run up to Privatisation in 1994, Sherness was located firmly in the area of operation of shadow freight company Mainline Freight. Mainline provided the traction and resources for the trains and whilst Class 58s were the normal motive power for the workings from Snailwell, it was not uncommon to find pairs of 37s on these trains with the Willesden services often producing pairs of 33s in lieu of 58s or 37s.

In 1998 Co-Steel was sold to Allied Steel and Wire who owned the Electric Arc Furnace at Cardiff Tidal. Allied Steel and Wire was a big user of scrap metal, and the decision was taken to amalgamate both the scrap wagon fleets based at Cardiff and Sheerness, into one pool of wagons. This saw the JXA’s normally associated with the Sheerness operations go nationwide.

In 2002 Allied steel and Wire went into administration but interest from the Spanish Company Celsa Group saw both plants at Cardiff and Sheerness purchased. Wire Rod and Wire Coils continued to be produced by the two plants but with a much-reduced workforce. The plant at Sheerness was bought in 2003 by a Saudi Backed company called Thamesteel and again used JXA wagons to deliver its scrap metal by rail.

During this period of time the majority of the scrap metal for the plant at Sheerness was being brought to site by coastal shipping which had an impact on rail services. The volume of steel that the plant was processing was declining by both rail and ship and in 2012 the plant at Sheerness closed with the loss of 400 jobs. However, for the plant at Cardiff it was very much business as usual.

In the early 2000s, the ex-Powell Duffryn JXA wagons started to be withdrawn with some stored at various sites and some cut up. A few examples can be seen in use at Scunthorpe steel works as internal user wagons.

The Cavalex Model

Cavalex Models are teaming up with Rails of Sheffield to produce the Powell Duffryn PXA steel coil carrier and converted JXA bogie scrap wagon in OO.

The wagon will incorporate the following features:

• A wealth of separately fitted parts

• Fully detailed underframe

• Authentic tarpaulin

• Pivoted split chassis

• Prototypical fully detailed replica bogie

• Era specific printing and livery elements

• Designed for easy conversion to EM and P4

• Zinc alloy chassis

• Sprung buffers

• Sprung kinematic NEM couplings

The model is ready to move to the production stage of the process as per the photos below, with painted samples approved ready for production:

Deliveries are expected during Q2 2024.

The wagons will be priced at £49.95 each and can be pre-ordered exclusively through Rails of Sheffield.

These models are exclusive to Rails of Sheffield and cannot be ordered through any other retailer.

Please visit the Rails of Sheffield website for more information regarding the wagon range and how to pre-order these models:

We would like to express our sincere thanks to John Talbot, Mike Fraser and James Skoyles for their help behind the scenes with this project.