Following the success of our HOA-A hoppers, Revolution is offering IIA-B and later HOA-B wagons in OO gauge 1:76.2 scale.
In addition, the similar IIA-F sand carrying wagons, with hinged roofs, will also be made available.
Prototype History
The prototype IIA-B wagons were built in several batches.
In 2008, EWS ordered 34 wagons for use on Cemex trains from Peak Forest and Shap. These were built by Greenbrier in Poland and delivered in Cemex blue and grey livery, however the branding was removed after less than a year.
Instead of a domestic code in the H series, they received the international TOPS code IIA-B, and were given the UIC designation Fabfnoos.
Also in 2008 wagon leasing company NACCO bought 40 for use on Mendip Rail trains from the Somerset quarries Tor Works (Foster Yeoman/Aggregate Industries) and Whatley (Hanson) with an additional 20 purchased for Mendip Rail use a year later by VTG.
In 2019 a further 35 wagons were added to the Mendip Rail fleet by VTG, but these were domestically coded HOA-B, with the UIC designation Fanpps, and in 2020 they were joined by 40 more HOA-Bs owned by wagon leasing company Touax, and outshopped in dark red. The success of these wagons, and planned retirement of existing fleets of wagons dating from the 1980s and early 90s, then led to a further VTG order in 2024 for 203 HOA-Bs, these delivered in dark blue with MRL branding.
In 2017 GBRf, impressed by the success of the design, ordered 41 similar wagons fitted with hinged roofs coded IIA-F (UIC: Tanpps) for Sibelco Leziate sand traffic from Middleton Towers, just outside Kings Lynn in Norfolk, to Goole, Barnby Dun and Monk Bretton in Yorkshire. The Revolution model will cover this variant, which will be available exclusively from Key Model World.
The sand traffic has become a key flow for GBRf’s new fleet of Class 69 locomotives; these are former Class 56s that have been reborn by being fitted with Class 66 type EMD710 powerplants.
The map below shows many of the workings of these widely travelled wagons; but as aggregate flows can be short term, and as wagon fleet useage changes, it does not claim to be exhaustive.
The model
Revolution is tooling five different variants to cover the totality of the IIA-B, HOA-B and IIA-F fleet. These cover differences in brake arrangements, location of discharge controls, positioning of strengthening fillets and, in the case of the IIA-Fs, the hinged roof parts.
We will also be offering a selection of liveries to cover the service lives so far of these wagons (not all livery versions may be produced in the first run).
We expect to open the order book soon, and with CAD completed we anticipate that tooling will begin this summer and the models should be ready to be shipped by Q2-3 2026.
