BR’s prototype scrap wagons

DURING 1987, with domestic coal traffic in terminal decline, some 131 redundant HEA hopper wagons were transferred to the Railfreight Metals sub-sector and recoded as HSAs for further use as scrap metal carriers. The only modification for this new role was the plating over of the bottom hopper doors.

Inevitably, the comparatively lightweight bodies of the HSAs soon began to be damaged by the electromagnets used for unloading the scrap metal. Consequently, during the summer of 1989,