• Our booking engine at tickets.railforums.co.uk (powered by TrainSplit) helps support the running of the forum with every ticket purchase! Find out more and ask any questions/give us feedback in this thread!

Spotting Container wagons

Status
Not open for further replies.

the-man

Member
Joined
26 Jan 2020
Messages
77
Location
Swindon
Morning people...does anyone collect the wagon numbers from container trains and if so do u need to get every single number if the side ? I am thinking about collecting them.
 
Sponsor Post - registered members do not see these adverts; click here to register, or click here to log in
R

RailUK Forums

Peter C

Established Member
Joined
13 Oct 2018
Messages
4,514
Location
GWR land
I can't speak from experience on this exact topic, but having looked at some photos, I would have assumed the wagon numbers on one side would be the same as the other. https://paulbartlett.zenfolio.com/freightlinerconflat seems to have some good photos on container wagons and it seems as though one side should give you everything you want. It's probably worth making a note here that there's no specific way to do any form of trainspotting/number collecting/etc.; it's all up to you with regards to what you do and don't want to collect/spot.

Hope this helps. :)

-Peter
 

the-man

Member
Joined
26 Jan 2020
Messages
77
Location
Swindon
Peter C...thanks for the response..I have a book and some of the numbers are 12 digits long on container wagons...I don't know if they are in the UK or not. I was wondering if u had to write down the whole lot
 

Peter C

Established Member
Joined
13 Oct 2018
Messages
4,514
Location
GWR land
Peter C...thanks for the response..I have a book and some of the numbers are 12 digits long on container wagons...I don't know if they are in the UK or not. I was wondering if u had to write down the whole lot
You're welcome :) As I said, I'm not an expert by any means on this topic; looking at the link I posted in Post #2, I think the wagon numbers in the UK might be six digits long, but I'm not sure.

-Peter
 

86247

Member
Joined
12 Feb 2017
Messages
305
Location
clock face
The British wagons are six digits long so a freightliner wagon would be 60xxxx, the 12 digit numbers are international wagons from either France or Germany but some are registered British so I think a British one is something like 70 xxxx xxx German ones are 80 xxxx xxx.ive been doing wagons for years on or off.
 

the-man

Member
Joined
26 Jan 2020
Messages
77
Location
Swindon
The British wagons are six digits long so a freightliner wagon would be 60xxxx, the 12 digit numbers are international wagons from either France or Germany but some are registered British so I think a British one is something like 70 xxxx xxx German ones are 80 xxxx xxx.ive been doing wagons for years on or off.
86247...thank you
 

86247

Member
Joined
12 Feb 2017
Messages
305
Location
clock face
from the top of my head I think
70 xxxx is British and French i think
80 xxxx is German
83 xxxx I think is Italian
then you have 87 and 88 can't remember what country of origin they are but you normally see the 70 and 80 mostly in UK. hope this helps
 

CW2

Established Member
Joined
7 May 2020
Messages
1,922
Location
Crewe
You can find out more about the Continental wagon numbering system here.

A typical EWS container twin "multifret" wagon would be in the series 31 70 4938 000-7 onwards
The 31 denotes it is a privately owned wagon.
The 70 denotes it is UK registered.
The 49 denotes it is a special type of flat wagon (i.e. Multifret).
The 3 is a sub class of 49.
8000 is the individual wagon number.
The final 7 is the "check digit" to make sure you've read all the other ones correctly. (See the link for how to calculate it). The check digit does NOT follow sequentially from one wagon to the next, so you might have:
31704938000-7
31704938001-5
31704938002-3
etc.
 

43096

On Moderation
Joined
23 Nov 2015
Messages
15,162
The British wagons are six digits long so a freightliner wagon would be 60xxxx, the 12 digit numbers are international wagons from either France or Germany but some are registered British so I think a British one is something like 70 xxxx xxx German ones are 80 xxxx xxx.ive been doing wagons for years on or off.
All new British registered wagons are receiving the 12 digit EVNs* regardless of if they are for international use or not.

* actually, it's 11 digits plus a check digit for the European Vehicle Number (EVN)

from the top of my head I think
70 xxxx is British and French i think
80 xxxx is German
83 xxxx I think is Italian
then you have 87 and 88 can't remember what country of origin they are but you normally see the 70 and 80 mostly in UK. hope this helps
No, 70 is just for the UK. 87 is France, 88 is Belgium.

The link in CW2's post above gives the details of what each of the number blocks mean.
 

ChiefPlanner

Established Member
Joined
6 Sep 2011
Messages
7,768
Location
Herts
Morning people...does anyone collect the wagon numbers from container trains and if so do u need to get every single number if the side ? I am thinking about collecting them.

Yes - I used to do it , 7 days a week and sometimes at all hours. I was paid to do it as a Supervisor Grade C and D .....important to check arrivals and departures , even with TOPS. Mind you this was 1980 to 1983. A fact not missed I assure you , as a graduate one used to wonder at 0200 hrs on a night as cold as this , why ?
 

StephenHunter

Established Member
Joined
22 Jul 2017
Messages
2,118
Location
London
All new British registered wagons are receiving the 12 digit EVNs* regardless of if they are for international use or not.

* actually, it's 11 digits plus a check digit for the European Vehicle Number (EVN)


No, 70 is just for the UK. 87 is France, 88 is Belgium.

The link in CW2's post above gives the details of what each of the number blocks mean.
Some of the new passenger stock has EVNs on the side, like the Mark 5s for Caledonian Sleeper.
 

GB

Established Member
Joined
16 Nov 2008
Messages
6,457
Location
Somewhere
To help you out a bit...if you are spotting triple set FWA eco-fret wagons the two outer platforms always start 704520 and the middle platform always start 704521, so you only need to look for the last 4 numbers.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Top