While the 102t bogie tank for RailWorks went through testing we decided to create a handy little taste of things to come as a free download. A logical choice to put in place as a part of Project East Coast was the standard design of independent snowplough built to diagram 623 in its unrefurbished form.

Background

As was the case with many things that British Railways inherited at Nationalisation there were a wide variety of different snowploughs designed and built by both the 'Big 4' and pre-grouping companies. Diagram 623 was the reaction to attempt to standardise snow ploughs across the system.

In a classic bit of recycling, British Railways built their new snow ploughs on the recovered frames of 4200 gallon standard steam tenders.

The ploughs themselves weighed in at 31.5 tons and were fitted with vacuum brakes and were provided with a removable bar coupling to allow them to be towed nose to nose if required. Although a hand brake and window were fitted the interiors were not fitted out and just contained clamps for the temporary coupling, hand brake and brake valve. Unusually the ploughs had wheels of differing sizes with smaller wheels fitted at the front of the plough and an uneven wheelbase.

The model will be made available as a free download and may be included by default in other packs if used in the scenarios. Naturally the plough will be eligible for reskinning by third parties if they wish.

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