The war department had assessed the capacity of the British rail tank wagon fleet in the mid-1930s and had concluded that it would prove woefully insufficient in the event of a European war closing off the East coast ports to the shipping which supplied crude oil to the refineries. At this time plans for adding capacity were based on the need to move crude oil from West coast ports to the existing refineries on the East coast, the fuel demand for a thousand bomber raid had not even been imagined!
At the outbreak of WW2 the oil tank wagons were pooled and orders for new wagons arranged by the air ministry, it having quickly becoming clear they would be prolific consumers of petrol! Many orders were placed for a standard design of tank wagon based on a wagon designed in the late 1930s.
After the end of the war these quite new air ministry wagons were distributed and sold to the oil companies and many remained in service until replaced by the higher capacity 35 and 45 ton tank wagons with vacuum or later air train brakes in the late 1950s and 1960s as British Railways offered preferential rates on long-term contracts for regular block trains of fully fitted wagons which suited the oil companys' bulk refinery to distribution depot operations.
Features of the 14T tank wagon
- Extremely detailed and accurate body shell and chassis
- Many separately added fine details
- Sprung metal buffers
- Metal sprung coupling hook and three link coupling
- Finely profiled wheels with sprung axles for smooth running
- Superbly applied livery