Caledonian Railway: new RTR announcements

Entry posted by truffy February 24, 2018

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Related to ongoing commissions threads, but a bit OT and involving grandfathers, so I thought I'd put it here, in my otherwise neglected blog. This is my first blog post on RMweb. It may not be the last. But, given the fact that it's taken four years to start, don't hold your breath.

As a lad, I had a Hornby train set. I loved it. When my grandparents went on holiday abroad they'd return with donkeys wearing sombreros, or plastic flamenco dancers, strange for Italy. But when they holidayed in the UK, they'd return with something train-related. The one that really captured my imagination was a beautiful blue set, what I now assume to be The Rural Rambler (R174), and the only likely resemblance to any prototype came after a few stiff ones*. But I was young and naive and didn't care, which is just as well because I was way below the legal limit for a few stiff ones!

It set my eye on R553, a retrospectively crude depiction of a Caley 4-2-2. I liked the colour, but it captured my imagination in part because of the large Dean Single-alike driving wheel.

Over forty years have passed, and Hattons announced their Andrew Barclay 0-4-0 industrial. I fancied the idea of one, but not so much to invoke rule #1 on my planned late-30s SR layout. And then Rails announced their exclusive release of the utterly gorgeous class 812 0-6-0. Now a separate layout with both locos, and a different backstory, makes sense...how exciting!

I only hope that Bachmann do justice to the 812. And that someone might do justice to the 4-2-2 in the future.

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* The loco died years ago, but I still have the carriages. They're the generic 4-wheelers that Hornby trot out in different colours as GWR, SR, and Annie and Clarabelle. Which reminds me, I really should pass them on to my youngest daughter, to go with Thomas. Like me, she loves blue and doesn't care.

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