OIT - Container hở British D-type (1:148)

The D-type was the larger open container type within the pre-ISO containers, used within the British railways. Developed out of private swap vans the standardization within these earlier containers was not that strong, but over the time some standard designs were defined by the RCH (Railway Clearing House), an institution taking care for interoperation between the different railways. By that reason by far the majority D-type containers of the Big4-railways look so familiar. There were other types, like the DX-one (a version without side doors), but the wooden type presented here was the most common one.

486 were built by London Midland and Scottish Railway (LMS) in three different LOT’s (946, 1481 and 1532) in 1936 - 1947. They differ a little from other ones missing the centre strap at the back end.

385 were built by the London North Eastern Railway (LNER) in the 1930s as under Diagram 28.

35 were built by the Great Western Railway (GWR) under Diagram D3, at least some of them were equipped with a lid, making them in fact closed containers, but this was a specific GWR-development.

50 were built by the Southern Railway (SR) as per Diagram 3023

Most of these containers found 1948 their way into the newly formed British Railway and over the years the BR built another 1974 D-type containers of same design under diagram 3/550 (Drawing RCH816L), making a total of 2895 containers used, before they were phased out of traffic in the 1960s and early 1970s.

As mentioned, there were a few other D-type containers in used, but all similar appearance, that’s why I wasn’t that keen to model them, with one exception – the LMS-steel version of LOT 601, of which 105 were built in 1929/1931. This one caused some more interest to me, so I created also versions with open doors, to be used on cartages or lorries for loading/unloading scenes.

Containers are available in two versions, one optimized for resin print and one better fitting for FDM-printers, except lid and spreaders that are best printed in resin.

I have to thanks Carlislecitadel2@Thingverse! He helped me a lot to get more and better information about British road-rail containers, so I can continue the “containerization”-theme at a higher level. Many thanks to him!

All models sized for British n-scale (1:148). Conversion values:
Continental N-scale, 1:160 -> 92.5%
TT-gauge, 1:120 -> 123%
HO/H0-gauge, 1:87 -> 170%
OO/00-gauge, 1:76 -> 195%
S-gauge, 1:64 -> 231%
O-gauge, 1:48 -> 308%

The PDF-file contains templates for making DIY-decals for the other containers in different scale.

Please note the license:
My design is published under the CC BY-NC-SA license, which means that you can freely use this model for any non-commercial purpose and may remix this design freely as long as you provide attribution and share with the same creative commons license. Feel free to contact me if any questions.