Ammonia tank wagons

[Bóithre Iarainn]

Hello all,

Would anyone happen to know the capacity of the ammonia wagons? I've always been struck by how short these trains were, I believe they ran with only six wagons before being lengthened to nine after the introduction of the 201s. Were these short trains lengths due to the weight or was it a safety precaution?

[Old Blarney]

The following information is taken from - "Locomotives and Rolling Stock of Coras Iompair Eireann and Northern Ireland Railways -O.Doyle and S Hirsch. March 1969."

Numbered Series 32001 - 32020. Introduced 1978. Builder: Fauvet Girel, France. Length: 42' 6".  Weight: 29 tons Capacity: 46 Tons

Couplings: Screw Brakes: Hand /Vacuum.

There were also Barrier Wagon, two per train, Numbered Series 30279 - 30284. Weight: 17 Tons and their container of Water 20 tons! must also be considered for these train formations.

Built for the carriage of liquid anhydrous ammonia between Nitrigin Eireann Teo plant at marino Point, Cork and Shelton Abbey, Arklow, these wagons are leased from Storage and transport Systems Ltd, London and are painted white with an orange and green underframes.

I believe additional Ammonia wagons were acquired, unfortunately, I have no information on these. I remember seeing a photograph of one or more and I noted they differed in their body design.

Edited May 5, 2022 by Old Blarney

[warb]

Few photos that might help showing the difference between wagons

regards

warb

[Robert Shrives]

I recall it being not only weight but ability to store on site at Shelton abbey, the  shorter train suited operations the short experiment to nine with fewer trains was not repeated, it might on the face have made operations cheaper but overall the cost was greater due to need to make changes- as a guess.

There were a couple of extra wagons which had differing discharge position cover boxes and a differing underframe.  

In the resources section on here is a drawing of the first batch.   The other drawing I have shows the later wagons built by Bombardier at its Wakefield facility but does not show number range - it might have been only a hand full as phots are not common of them in traffic, thanks to warb for phots above.

Robert    

[Bóithre Iarainn]

Wonderful photos there warb thank you for sharing!

4 hours ago, Old Blarney said:

The following information is taken from - "Locomotives and Rolling Stock of Coras Iompair Eireann and Northern Ireland Railways -O.Doyle and S Hirsch. March 1969."

Numbered Series 32001 - 32020. Introduced 1978. Builder: Fauvet Girel, France. Length: 42' 6".  Weight: 29 tons Capacity: 46 Tons

Couplings: Screw Brakes: Hand /Vacuum.

There were also Barrier Wagon, two per train, Numbered Series 30279 - 30284. Weight: 17 Tons and their container of Water 20 tons! must also be considered for these train formations.

Built for the carriage of liquid anhydrous ammonia between Nitrigin Eireann Teo plant at marino Point, Cork and Shelton Abbey, Arklow, these wagons are leased from Storage and transport Systems Ltd, London and are painted white with an orange and green underframes.

I believe additional Ammonia wagons were acquired, unfortunately, I have no information on these. I remember seeing a photograph of one or more and I noted they differed in their body design.

Many thanks! That has cleared things up a lot. I must try to get myself a copy of that book, it would be a handy reference to have. I believe I recall reading that there were three additional wagons and they were delivered in 1995.

Thanks Robert, I'll have a look at those drawings

[Mayner]

The ammonia trains were relatively short because of weight.

The Irish Railway Models A Class 'Handbook" notes that laden Ammonia trains was very severe on the 001 Class as they were very close to the limit of what a 001 Class could haul up the grade out of Cork.