K*train - 1704-I - Tank Car, Wine Barrel - MZA - K-620

Prototype History: Wine barrel cars are freight cars with wooden wine barrels installed on them. They can be referred to as foudre, from the French term for these large wine barrels. A two-barrel car was designated as bi-foudre.

This special type of tank wagon was set up by private wine merchants from several continental European countries. Most of these cars were built in the first quarter of the 20th century. Due to regular thefts and high repair costs, they were later manufactured in a closed construction, partly with roof domes. From the 1960s, they were replaced by tank cars.

Road Name History: The Compañía de los ferrocarriles de Madrid a Zaragoza y Alicante (MZA) was a Spanish railway company established in 1856 and that it became one of the great companies of the railway sector along with its great competitor, the Compañía de los Caminos de Hierro del Norte de España.

This competition also came from the large financial families that competed at the time, the Rothschilds for MZA and the Pereires for the Norte. Starting from its first railroad concessions, it spread rapidly to take on some of the main lines of Extremadura, Castilla la Nueva, Andalusia or Levante, controlling an important market. The MZA was also the one that constructed the stations of Atocha in Madrid, El Carmen in Murcia, Campo Sepulcro (later of El Portillo) in Saragossa or Plaza de Armas in Seville, also known as station of Córdoba and at the moment reconverted in commercial center. With the arrival of the twentieth century, the Company was at the highest splendor of its operational history, although not long after the crisis made a dent in the company. The Spanish Civil War revealed to be the swan song for the company, that would be condemned because in 1941 the pro-Franco state decreed the nationalization of all the railroads to create the national company RENFE. From that moment, MZA ceased to exist.

Read more on Wikipedia (in Spanish) and on ferropedia.es (in Spanish).

Brand/Importer Information: K*train is a Spanish company that began its journey at the end of 2000 with the purpose of covering the gaps that the Spanish railway models have until now, thus satisfying the needs and desires of fans of this hobby.
K*train is located in Gijón (Asturias).