MGFH Flour Hopper

MGFH ‘Manildra’ Flour Hopper

Brand new MGFH 1702M at Acacia Ridge in 29/11/94. John Hoyle

‘Manildra Group’ owns and operates flourmills in Manildra, Bomaderry and Gunnedah. When the fleet of SRA converted flour hoppers (NGLF - modified WHX type) became uneconomical to use, Manildra purchased their own fleet of customised flour hoppers.

These Stainless steel hoppers are one of the heaviest non-coal wagons to be regularly used in NSW. They are designed to carry both flour and grain. The roof area has 5 circular hatches for loading flour and two longitudinal sliding doors to load wheat. The bottom discharge doors are operated by hydraulic motors on the wagons and are opened by portable pumps located at the mills and distribution points. Toggle levers, between the centre doors, control the doors. On the ‘A’ end deck, is an access ladder and the ‘B’ end, has all the brake equipment mounted on it.

The wagons are amongst the tallest in NSW and stand an impressive 4.27m high.

Builders:

ANI Ruwolt of Karrabin QLD built 70 hoppers, between in May 1994 to March 95. They were numbered 1701-1770.

Length: 16.8m Tare: 26.5t Capacity: 73.5t Gross: 100t

Bogies: Fitted with type almost identical to the SRA 2CM.

Coding:

- They have only ever been coded MGFH.

Colour Scheme:

- The body is unpainted stainless steel; it carries ‘Manildra Group’ lettering and ‘Gem of the West’ logo. The wagon ends and underframe are painted FreightRail blue. Bogies are gunmetal grey.

Operation:

These wagons are used in dedicated Manildra flour traffic around NSW. They were at a time used a general grain hoppers by FreightCorp to help with a bumper wheat harvest.

Modelling:

- Australian Hobby Casting (Hanovale) released a kit in early 2006.