THE first BAA air-braked steel carrier, No. 900000, which was built in Ashford in 1972, has been sent to EMR Kingsbury for scrapping.
The first 49 of what would eventually become a fleet of 305, 40ft, 100-tonne wagons were built between September and December 1972 to diagram 1/441/ lot 3792 primarily for carrying steel slabs. Numbered No. 900000-900049 they were painted all-over bauxite and featured a narrow fishbelly frame design.
They were notable in being fitted with a vacuum through pipe allowing them to be consisted with older vehicles. Under TOPS these would become BAB, although from the mid-1980s the now obsolete pipes began to be removed with the consequent
