A key wagon type of the later age of British Rail freight operations, the Open AB, is to be produced in ‘OO’ by Rapido Trains UK. Later classed as OAA under the Total Operations System (TOPS), the 45T capacity wagons were built in the early 1970s for BR’s emerging air-brake freight network.
Employed on all manner of nationwide freight flows, the wagons also found use on departmental duties and some were modified for carrying stone blocks, with EWS modifying a batch of OAAs for this work in the 1990s.