Transporter Wagon - Transporter Flatcar

Transporter Flatcar

Transporter wagons were used extensively for a great many years also in Austria (gauge 760 mm/2 ft 5 7⁄₈ in), Switzerland
(1,000 mm/3 ft 3 3⁄₈ in Brünigbahn) and Sweden (gauges 802 mm/2 ft 7 3⁄₅ in, 891 mm/2 ft 11 1⁄₁₀ in, and 1,067 mm/3 ft 6 in). This was a boon esp. to exchange traffic on the extensive Swedish 891 mm network, which once comprised almost 2,000 km (1,243 mi) - in fact a number of local country areas in southern Sweden had nearly no 1,435 mm (4 ft 8 1⁄₂ in) (standard gauge) lines at all, just narrow gauge ones. On the other hand, Rollböcke were not much used there.

An interesting development of the original transporter wagon concept (with bar couplers between each wagon) was that the bar couplers were discarded in favour of connecting all standard gauge wagons directly with each other by means of their ordinary buffing and draft gear. This was tried for a few years in Sweden just before the last narrow gauge freight lines were closed in the 1980s.

Special adaptors could be employed to couple a set of transporter wagons onto the end of an "ordinary" narrow gauge freight train. Continuous braking was no problem, either, as the train air line could be incorporated into the bar couplers, too.

Judging from early literature, the transporter wagon idea came about in Germany sometime around 1880 or 1890 (where in fact, later, Rollböcke were used a lot more than transporters). Transporter wagons with the unique Heberlein type friction brake system were in daily use in the old GDR (East Germany) well into the late 1980s.

In Britain, they were introduced to the Leek and Manifold Valley Light Railway in 1904 by Everard Calthrop, who also introduced them to the Barsi Light Railway in India of 1897. They carried the bulk of the freight traffic on the Leek and Manifold Valley.

Transporter wagons are widely used to get rolling stock including locomotives from gauge-isolated branch lines to main maintenance centres. The South Australia Railways had its "Crocodile" wagon for this purpose.