Dapol - 2F-039-003 - Wagon, Telescopic Hood - Tiphook - 589 9 058 5

Specific Item Information: These wagons were designed for the efficient transportation of steel in sheet or roll form. They were built by Linke Hoffmann Busch in Germany in 1979, originally for VTG and then more recently for Tiphook. The wagon was deignated KIA under the TOPS nomenclasture.

Road Name History: Tiphook PLC was a transport services company in the United Kingdom which became the world’s second largest marine container leasing business in the 1990s. They did not own any ships but rather provided containers to shipping lines and high volume customers who wanted to insulate themselves from the swings in the container space market. After a debt-fuelled buying spree in the late 1980s, it crashed in the early 1990s after accounting changes brought about by its expansion into North America resulted in a technical and then actual default in its debt. The company agreed to reduce its debts by selling off its profitable container business to Transamerica Corporation in February 1994.

Brand/Importer Information: Dapol Ltd is a Welsh model railway manufacturer based in Chirk, Wales. The factory where design and manufacturing take place is just over the border in England. The company is known for its model railway products in N gauge and OO gauge. Dapol's name is a play on its founders David and Pauline Boyle's names. He owned a model concern Highfield Birds & Models. In 1981 he first tried to buy the Airfix and Mainline ranges. The Dapol brand name was first used in a Railway Modeller advert of September 1983. The first Dapol wagons (for OO) were announced to become available on 20 November 1983. From 1 March 1984 ex Airfix railway kits became available.

Dapol manufactures a growing range of N gauge locomotives, coaches and wagons, and is the main competitor of Graham Farish in the British 'ready-to-run' market. Continuous improvement in model specifications has led to the introduction of 40:1 gearing in locomotive drive mechanisms, NEM couplings on all stock, and LED lighting strips for coaching stock (yellow for 'older' coaches, to represent incandescent illumination, and white for more modern coaches and EMUs to represent fluorescent fittings).