About This Content

British Railways decided that changes in the steel industry would require the use of more bogie vehicles, and as a consequence built a number of different designs. The wagons, fitted with bolsters to support the load, were mainly grouped according to length (and hence the nominal capacity). The largest were classed as Bogie Bolster D, being 52ft in length with a load capacity of 42 tons.

The first Bogie Bolster D wagons built for BR were 150 vehicles built at Derby in 1949 to an LMS design, which BR described as Diagram 1/470. This featured five fixed bolsters and lashing down rings on the solebar and the wagon was carried on LMS diamond frame bogies. The next 200 vehicles were to an LNER design, appearing in 1950, as Lot 2211 to Diagram 1/472 with the outer 2 bolsters moveable between 2 locations and lashing rings set into the floor of the wagon and were fitted with LNER diamond frame bogies.

1951 saw the appearance of Lot 2237 and with it, the change to GWR style plate bogies which set the appearance of the vast majority of Bolster D wagons with in excess of 1600 unfitted Diagram 1/472 vehicles constructed in 14 lots until 1958. It is these wagons that are represented in this pack.

The wagons in this pack are presented in Clean Unfitted Freight Grey and in a somewhat weathered condition. There is a choice of Empty or Loaded states, with 3 load choices: H-Beams, Pipes and Billets. Randomly applied choices of lettering are applied to the wagons to cover the changes in vehicle coding over the years. Prior to TOPS, the code could be rendered as Bogie Bolster D or D-Bolster, with BDO being the code used after TOPS. The lettering options can be overridden in the scenario editor if required. The empty wagons also feature a random choice of the location of the pins in the four sockets in the top of the bolsters where they may have been left after unloading.

The BDO 60T Unfitted Bogie Bolster Wagon Pack for Train Simulator includes

• Randomised decals with overrides
  
• Clean and Weathered textures
  
• Empty and Loaded versions with suitable physics
  
• Billet, pipe and H-beam loads
  
• Randomised bolster pin locations on empty versions.
  
• Animated hand brakes

The pack includes a user manual with further details about the rolling stock and the customising of some of the features when using the wagons in scenarios. To allow the formation of correctly marshalled trains a British Railways dia. 1/506 unfitted 20T brake van is also bundled with this wagon pack.