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3 Responses to US Freight Cars on UK Track?
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In the 90’s I worked in the U.K. for a couple of weeks and observed indeed an American flat car on British tracks. It was parked, had U.S. AAR (Bettendorf style) trucks, European buffers and an AAR style automatic coupler, which was folded down exposing a hook for the European style link coupler. I was always sorry I never took a picture of it. Hopefully some British rail fans will come forward with more evidence. I assumed it was a leftover from WW II or a period shortly thereafter when a lot of American hardware ended up in the U.K. and the European mainland.
I believe that before the USA joined the efforts against the Axis armies in Europe that the British government purchased vehicles and armaments from them, inclding rail locomotives and rolling stock. You would need to check with the relevent historival societies for confirmation
US standard gauge box vans are far too tall to work in UK; gondolas are probably too wide & long. (We have very restrictive loading gauge & structure gauge.) It is possible specially designed vehicles (e.g. flat wagons to carry Sherman tanks) worked in UK during WWII, as did S.100 0-6-0T & s.160 2-8-0 locomotives (also specially designed). Any box vans & gondolas sent to UK would probably have been stored until they could be shipped to the European mainland after D-Day, as were the S.160s & most of the S.100s.