Dapol Conflat Wagons

As the British transport network grew some companies began to use containers which could be transshipped between rail and road haulage without reloading. This was especially useful where pilferage of goods in transit might be a problem. These containers were usually carried on flat wagons such as carriage trucks or in low-sided open wagons.
After the grouping in 1923 the railway companies began to expand their own door-to-door container services and as the numbers of containers outstripped the supply of the wagons normally used to convey them dedicated container flat, or CONFLAT, wagons appeared.

The GWR Conflat wagon design was a flat wagon based on the contemporary open wagon underframe with a low curb rail and chain pockets built into the floor to ensure a set of securing chains remained with the wagon when not loaded. Most of these wagons were equipped with vacuum train brakes to make them suitable for running in accelerated or 'fast fitted' goods trains. The first batch was built on the 9ft wheelbase, but the largest batch of almost 1,000 wagons was built to diagram H7 on the RCH 10ft wheelbase underframe introduced in the mid-1930s.
Two further diagram references were issued for GWR Conflat wagons. The external appearance of these remained unaltered from the H7 design, except for the commission of the vacuum brake fittings from the several hundred wagons built during WW2, designated diagram H9. After WW2 construction of vacuum fitted wagons resumed, now using the 1944 revision of the RCH underframe and allocated diagram H10 to identify the hidden structural changes and the drawings list required.

At nationalisation the British Railways wagons committee identified the GWR Conflat as being the more developed of the 'big four' company designs. Updated to use standard British Railways fittings the BR Conflat was essentially identical to the GWR H7. The last BR 'Speedfreight' services using the traditional containers ran in 1971, following which ISO containers were used, these also being used by the sea transport services.
Some Conflat wagons remained in operation by BR as runner wagons with shunting locomotives and as coupling adaptor wagons as more vehicles with centre couplers only were introduced.