Calidore

And looks like 30852, the latest Lord Nelson, is very close behind as well. Just saying!...

A truly bizarre state of affairs. So Rails asked the factory to make them black, and the factory said ‘tough’? I wonder how easy it would be to pop the handrail knobs off and respray the whole knob / rail assembly. But I fully agree, shouldn’t be necessary whatsoever.

I think even the transitional BR livery has slightly over-bold and somewhat 'chunky' lettering on the tender. I agree to a point with the view that it's easily fixed, and to that degree it's a minor quibble, but still a bit of a shame to need to do it. This photo is an extremely close call either way, for me. I do think that along the majority of the boiler length the shine of the handrail seems to match the shine from the sun on the boiler cladding, but there is a marked contrast once looking at the smokebox area. It seems to retain a much higher degree of shine than the smokebox (which granted, in matt, wouldn't have much, but even so the difference is noticeable). But then again, looking at the tiny visible portion of the rail running across the face of the smokebox after it turns, the sheen is gone entirely when in an area not directly lit by the sun, and it appears black. I wouldn't be confident to make a call either way here, although in the absence of strong positive evidence for the polished finish, black would surely seem more plausible and likely to most people.

Was just about to pick this up. Every photo I can see from the usual sources plus a google images search (surprisingly, quite a few photos) shows it facing forwards, rather than back. A stunning model, though, and it looks excellent in every livery. So smart. It looks much better in these photos than in the sample images, and the improvements in areas such as the olive colour are very positive. The intermediate BR livery with sunshine lettering is irresistible.

On a second look, they must have been early samples, because ‘22 has the wrong bodyshell (front cowling and cylinder covers, which the production model will not have). Still a tantalising picture.

There seems to have been a sneaky photo of 35022 and 21C7 here which has subsequently disappeared. The green looked good on '22, thank the gods... I hadn't been that interested in 21C7 until the discussion and images on this page. But now... Oh dear.

On the ugly box point — I’ve always thought the light pacifics look better with the graceful front cowling and full casing ahead of the cylinders. Yet with the Merchants, I think they look more purposeful and brutish with the cutaway and no cowling. I think it’s something about their heavier front end which makes them look this way — it suits the ‘face’. So I’m looking forward to these coming BR examples which are all in the slightly later form.

A veritable flood of Merchant Navy engines is incoming according to the KMRC newsletter -- all four main range variants due during April. That's 35022, 35029, 35017, and 21C7, for those who may have lost count. I'm still somewhat on the fence about 35024, having been a tiny bit underwhelmed by the photos, but one or two of the green ones should be a done deal.

Hi @phil gollin -- this is a little late, but thought you might be interested. UID maroon warship at Waterloo alongside Lord Dowding, undated but presumably 1965-66. 34052 looks too tidy for it to be any later than that I think. (I don't have a reference for the photo to hand -- happy to correct / remove if anyone has further details) Adam

Wonderful photo regardless! Thanks.

That looks rather good. Amazing to see the thing, after however many years it's been. Kernow's website example does seem to have the bottom row of electric lights and lamp irons mounted parallel to the angle of the platework, rather than vertically, though -- I hope that's a one-off.

Very much looking forward to hearing about the colour / standard of finish, when someone gets hands on one... Adam

There's a nice photo of 5370 at Weymouth on RCTS: https://rcts.zenfolio.com/steam-gwr/4300/ha88914a8#ha88914a8 Although it may well have come via the GWR line in this case, a number of these were used on WR-SR inter-regionals and thus ran over SR metals in Hampshire. So I think I shall put myself down for 5370 -- looks lovely and I was sorry not to get one of these the first time around.

It takes a pretty good eye to spot that, gosh. Interesting to see though!

As far as I understand it, all three questions are answered in Edwardian's photos at the top of this page. Post-war, so about 1919-1923; lined; per pictures from the Harvey volume. Adam

Well this might be jolly hard to resist now. Thank you to all who have put the hours into investigating and lobbying on this issue -- I'm glad OO Works have taken the feedback!

Pathed from Waterloo rather than the usual Victoria, no less. Very tempting indeed. (As an aside, I can’t see the steam banking part you mentioned, but RTC did advertise this before — the plan was train engine to Weymouth, Swanage‘s mainline U class 31806 leading the return Weymouth-Soton banked by the train engine, and a reverse to return to London with the original train engine. But I digress.)

Great stuff. There are a couple of trips I really regret missing in the past few years -- 35028 on her non-Belmond trip to the south west (Exeter I think), and 35018 on her holiday to the south a couple of years ago. Next time that happens I'll definitely be out, if not on board! There should presumably be news re 35024 today or tomorrow? That's the two week period, as far as I can tell.

I have also heard this on a number of occasions as being Churchill’s own request. True or not, it certainly fits his character, and as these kinds of stories go it’s one of the more believable ones. Aside from that, I’m surprised to hear of even fairly standard rolling stock releases now falling into ‘sold out on preorder’ territory. I almost never preorder and would always much rather see the item first, and I would have thought these will be around in the shops for a little while at least. Adam

You’re a lucky man, sir! I do make the effort to go and see the mainline Bulleids when they’re out and about. Braunton sounded good through Clapham Junction a few months ago — was already at 45-50mph having started from Victoria and sounded very fine.

I do remember many people saying it was surely inevitable after the 4mm version was released, and for both the quality of the model and the practicality for small 7mm layouts I think this one will sell extremely well. The detailing on the smaller version is excellent and will really show to good effect in the larger scale. If they sell well, I really would hope the M7 could be next. Now that would be quite something.

The link above now works. Well this is very interesting— orders shall be placed...

Well that rather oozes power and elegance doesn’t it. Lovely stuff @robmcg. Adam

The (non-)marketing for this model has been strange indeed. It went from being so far in the future, to being so suddenly imminent, that it skipped out the usual ‘coming soon’ stages of featuring in the Engine Shed, or being promoted with samples on H’s Instagram page or the like. And this for something which would surely still be considered a reasonably ‘headline’-type release. Looking forward to seeing the finished article.

Has anyone enquired directly about the livery issue? I might be tempted by an LSWR example, purely because it's very pretty, but wouldn't consider myself sufficiently invested or knowledgable to take up the issue personally. If it turns up in a very unlikely livery then I'd be very hard pressed to spend this kind of money, but then again OO Works products do always seem to sell out before they even arrive so it'll be a tough one to judge unfortunately.