Flatbed wagon, Containers rest on this in Indian Railways

BLC wagons are CONCOR's new [1995] container flats. (Also known as 'CCF', Coaching Container Flats.) Low platform container flat wagons. These have light-weight welded 'skeletal' design underframes, automatic twist locks, a single-pipe air-brake system, and reduced wheel diameter (for the low beds). The low platform allows them to carry high-cube or Tallboy containers on routes where clearances would otherwise make this impossible.

These are mostly used for international container traffic from Mumbai. The wagons come in two flavours. An 'A' type (BLCA, also BLC-A) has a normal (AAR 'E' type) CBC at one end and a slackless drawbar at the other end. The 'B' type wagon (BLCB, also BLC-B) has only the slackless drawbar couplers at either end. Usually 3, or sometimes 5 BLCB wagons are coupled together, with a BLCA wagon at either end, forming a semi-permanently coupled formation of 5 or 7 wagons.

Being longer than most other wagons, a rake can only have about 45 of these BLC flats, which at the rate of 2 TEU's per wagon works out to a carrying capacity of 90 TEU's per train. A lot of international container traffic (especially from Mumbai) is carried on these.

In 2012, Golden Rock Workshops came up with a variant, BLC-25M, intended for carrying heavier loads with 25t axle loads, and provided with swing motion bogies.

Tare BLCA 19.1t, BLCB 18.0t
Length over headstock BLCA 13.625m, BLCB 12.212m
Height 1.009m
Width 2.1m
Wheel dia. 840mm
Distance between bogie centres BLCA 9.675m, BLCB 8.812m

AAR 'E' type CBC and slackless drawbar system. The slackless drawbar is lower than the normal couplers, at 898mm, while the CBC are at normal height (1080mm). Bogies are cast steel CASNUB bogies, a common variant in use now is denoted 'CONTR-LCCF-20(C)'. Air brakes, automatic load sensors. Max. speed 100km/h.

Some refrigerated containers are also moved on BLCA/BLCB wagons. This service was introduced recently [2004] between ICD Tughlakabad and JNPT / NSICT ports at Mumbai. These refrigerated units have special power-packs for refrigeration power on the run. The containers are modified 40' containers. Each power-pack serves 12 FEUs, and as many as three of them, serving 36 FEUs, have been run by CONCOR on a single train.

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