Conflat
Encyclopedia
Conflat is a United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

 railway term for a container wagon. For the vacuum flange, see Conflat (vacuum flanges).

History

'Conflat' is the telegraphic code
Great Western Railway telegraphic codes
Great Western Railway telegraphic codes were a commercial telegraph code used to shorten the telegraphic messages sent between the stations and offices of the railway....

 within the Great Western Railway
Great Western Railway
The Great Western Railway was a British railway company that linked London with the south-west and west of England and most of Wales. It was founded in 1833, received its enabling Act of Parliament in 1835 and ran its first trains in 1838...

's coding of railway wagons for a container wagon. Unlike normal wagon loads, containers were only listed to carry furniture or goods (unless they were refrigerated containers, which carried frozen products kept cold by ice) which needed to be placed on a specialist flatbed wagon
Flatcar
A flatcar is a piece of railroad or railway rolling stock that consists of an open, flat deck on four or six wheels or a pair of trucks or bogies . The deck of the car can be wood or steel, and the sides of the deck can include pockets for stakes or tie-down points to secure loads...

 which had train braking capability due to the fragile nature of the products carried.

The wagons were removed from service (as were the containers themselves) when more modern containers
Intermodal container
An intermodal container is a standardized reusable steel box used for the safe, efficient and secure storage and movement of materials and products within a global containerized intermodal freight transport system...

came into use.
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