Four-Wheel Steel Side-Discharge Hopper Wagon No.82

No 82 at Minffordd Side 1

Side 2

A one-off wagon to this design was built as an experiment by Hudsons and Kitson Technical College during 1987, using the frame of a Hudson ammunition crate wagon, to provide a wagon capable of delivering ballast to the shoulders of the formation from a slowly moving train without arduous shovelling. That the FR only has the single example is no reflection of its usefulness; when first designed the FR was using several thousand tons of ballast each year and ease of handling was critical. By the time the wagon entered service the situation had changed and ballasting had dropped to only a few hundred tons a year.

Known as Hoppity Hopper.

See also

• Wagons
• Robert Hudson Ltd
• Nicknames

Reference

• The Festiniog Railway, Preservation Era Drawings of Locos & Rolling Stock (Narrow Lines Extra No.12)(2005), Adrian Gray, 7mm Narrow Gauge Association, ISBN 0954981111