Wider-than-ISO modular accommodation bodies fabricated in Bánovce and delivered into the United Kingdom

A British buyer awarded Tanax a container programme built to a wide modular standard rather than to ISO width. Wide modular bodies are the Central European wide-module convention used for site offices, accommodation, classrooms and sanitary modules, with external widths running from 2438 mm at the narrow end to 2990 mm at the comfort end. The order proved that Tanax can take a non-EU buyer's dimensional brief, lock it into the production drawings, and ship the result across the Channel under the buyer's import documentation.

The build is a wide modular body. External widths across the units span 2438 mm at the narrow end to 2990 mm at the wide end, with length stepping in standard 6058 mm and 7300 mm modules. The body is hot-rolled steel frame, 1.6 mm corrugated wall panels where the call-off requested a clad finish, PIR sandwich where the call-off requested a fitted-out office or accommodation interior. Marine plywood floor sits on hot-rolled cross members. Doors are EPDM-sealed end doors with double cam locks on the storage variants, and standard hinged personnel doors with multi-point locking on the office and accommodation variants. Exterior RAL livery was supplied to the buyer's chosen palette per call-off.

Why the width matters: ISO 1CC corner castings, the CSC plate regime, and standard intermodal handling are all sized to a 2438 mm exterior. The wide-module convention widens the box above ISO width, which kills intermodal stackability but unlocks an interior layout that fits two beds across, or a desk row with a corridor, or a sanitary cabin with proper circulation. The trade is deliberate. Wide-module buyers know exactly what they are buying.

The welding chain ran the same as on every other Tanax line: MAG 135 to EN ISO 9606, robotic welding on the 2× Daihen FD-V8L 14 m track plus the FD-B6L 6-axis cell, manual joints on Kemppi MIG / MAG. Plates were cut on the TRUMPF TruLaser 3040 and on the plasma cell. The buyer's dimensional brief landed on standard tooling because the line was built for variable widths from the start.

The units were fabricated, painted, inspected and dispatched to the United Kingdom against the buyer's call-off calendar. No ISO conformity claim was made or implied: the units are wider-than-ISO modular bodies, not intermodal containers, and the CSC chain was deliberately out of scope. The buyer ran the UK customs entry, with Tanax supplying the CMR, packing lists, material certificates and per-unit geometric records the import file needed.

The project is the export anchor in the Tanax reference book. It proves that the production line, the welding qualification, and the QA chain hold when the buyer's dimensional convention sits outside the EU mainstream. The same logic carries to any future non-EU buyer working to a local module standard: the line accepts the drawings, the QA dossier follows the drawings, and the units leave the hall in the geometry the buyer ordered.