Flat wagon

Some flat wagons are able to be covered completely by tarpaulins or hoods and are therefore suitable for the transport of weather-sensitive goods.

Typical goods transported by these railway wagons are: vehicles, engines, large pipes, metal beams, wire coils, wire mesh, half-finished steel products, (sheets, coils, pipes, bars and plates), containers, rails, sleepers and complete sections of railway track.

Flat beds that comply fully with the leaflets, and are therefore true UIC standard wagons, are given the designation "UIS St".

The majority of ordinary two-axle flat beds built since the 1950s were those with folding sides and short swivelling stanchions of UIC type 1 with, at least in Germany, an axle base of only 8 metres (26 ft 2+15⁄16 in).

The most important index letters for basic classification of current types are: The UIC has standardised three types of L wagon, the Class Lgss being based heavily on the Class Ks (see above): The standard mixed open flat wagon group has folding sides, stanchions and two or three axles.

The exclusively four-axle bogie wagons of Class R are equipped with a solid, level deck, usually made of wood, and, unless indicated otherwise by the code letters, also furnished with stanchions and end walls.

In the 1990s, the DB purchased Class R wagons with long, sturdy, light metal stanchions and high end walls for the increasing amount of log transport required.

The most important index letters for distinguishing the basic types are as follows: The UIC has specified two standard R wagons, both of which are very common e.g. in Germany.

In order to keep the sag as low as possible, they are relatively short and thus mainly inscribed with the index letters mm.

In considerably larger numbers, and designed for transporting steel coils, are the four and six-axle wagons equipped with loading troughs of the class S…hmm….

These wagons for the ACTS roller container transport system with horizontal crossloading are common especially in Switzerland and the Netherlands.

Flat wagons for road vehicles (Class S…d…) are less common, because this typ of combined transport is only efficient on certain routes.

For the transport of logs, four-axle wagons with non-drivable decks and equipped with high, fixed stanchions are used (Class Snps).

In India double stacking of containers is done on flat wagons instead of well cars under 7.5m high catenary because the wider Indian Gauge permits more height while keeping the centre of gravity still low.

As a result, engineers at Volkswagen and Deutsche Bundesbahn jointly designed an extra long wagon for the transport of factory-new vehicles.