Here's a 3D render taken from the actual CAD file of our new 'N' gauge 'Conflat P'. As you can see, it features everything that you'd expect from a Rapido model including finely detailed injection moulded parts, metal bearings and NEM pockets.

We’re absolutely delighted to announce an ‘N’ gauge model of BR’s ‘Conflat P’ container wagon. This means that, together with our MetroVick Type 2s, ‘N’ gauge modellers will now be able to replicate one of BR’s most famous goods services.

‘Condor’ was BR’s Anglo-Scottish door-to-door container service that was launched in 1959. This tightly-timed train was to be diesel-hauled (by the MetroVicks) and, in order to increase the number of containers it could carry, BR created 60 Dia. 1/060 ‘Conflat P’ wagons.

It made so much sense for us to produce a wagon to run behind the Class 28 but the 'Conflat P' has been an incredibly challenging project, partly because there's so little published material about them.

The other challenge is that unlike, say, a ‘Conflat A’, the ‘Conflat P’ has no floor. All the chassis beams are visible and so there are very few places to attach things like brake pipes.

But we think you’ll agree that Bill and the designers in our factory have created a fantastic looking little wagon. You won’t find anything like it anywhere else!

There are literally only a handful of published 'Conflat P' photographs, which has made this project particularly challenging. But Bill Schneider has played an absolute blinder and drawn the basic design using a ‘Plate’ wagon drawing and a handful of photographs.

On top of that, we’ve also produced two new 1:148 scale containers, the Type BD and the Type A. These will be only available with the ‘Conflat P’ initially, but we plan to release them as separate accessories at a later date.

A 3D render of our new Dia. 3/050 Type BD container. BR built nearly 10,000 of these 16ft long containers between 1949 and 1958. Unlike other Type BD containers, the Dia. 3/050 comprised tongue-and-groove sides with the non-door end of pressed steel.

This is the Dia. 3/001 Type A container. Again, as with the Type BD, these were of tongue-and-groove construction with a pressed steel end. They were also the most popular Type A variant and 3,800 were built. It's a dinky little thing isn't it? The 7ft 6in length is a far cry from today's 40ft long ISO shipping container.

We’ve started tooling both the wagon and the containers. There are 15 individual ‘Conflats’ to choose from and three triple-packs. All the wagons come in BR bauxite livery but we’re making containers in BR crimson and BR bauxite (with door-to-door branding). All the containers have individual numbers too.

They’re available to order now, direct from the website or from your nearest Rapido stockist. Price is £29.95 whereas full retail price for the triple packs is £87.95.

What are you waiting for? Get those orders in now!

We’re thrilled to be able to say that our WMPTE Fleetlines and BCT ‘New Look’ Guys are in the country.

Admittedly, at the time of writing, we don’t know exactly where in the depths of Felixstowe container port they are but it means that they should be in the warehouse very shortly. Andy is eagerly standing by with boxes and tape at the ready!

Seriously, this is the first time that we have had an order to ship from the UK company. We know what we're doing on paper but we've never had the chance to put these plans into action before. It will take us several weeks to ship all the orders and we will despatch retailer orders first. Individual customers orders will follow.

Therefore, don't worry if you see Fleetlines and 'New Looks' in your local stockist before yours arrives. Your order is on its way but please bear with us. We thank you for your understanding and patience with this matter.

Once we're happy that all our systems work, subsequent deliveries will be despatched much more quickly!

Meanwhile, Jason and Richard have been creating suitable adverts to promote the Fleetlines. Look out for them in your favourite bus magazine soon.

In the midst of all the Fleetline excitement, the poor old BCT ‘New Look’ Guys have been overshadowed.

Which is a shame because Rapido’s first-ever British-outline bus model is just as good today as it was when it first came out. In fact, our new batch of Birmingham City Transport-liveried models now have the coat of arms on the nose, which makes them even better than the first batch. But orders for the fresh batch of Guys is well behind orders for the Fleetlines.

Come on bus people!

While they might cost more than a penny (RRP is £54.95 in fact), why not pick one up while you’re ordering your Fleetlines? No model bus collection is complete without a Guy!

And if they don’t start selling soon, we might have to resort to the ‘sad animal’ video tactics that they use in North America. Would we really stoop so low...? The Rapido North America "sad dog" video (click here or on the image below) got a project sales up by about 50%. We'd like to think our more dignified customers in the UK don't need us to resort to such tactics. We'll see!

If you don't want to see the UK business resorting to such underhand tactics, order your Guy now.

Development of our 'OO' gauge Hunslets is making good progress. You need to get your order in before the order deadline to secure the Hunslet you really want.

Diaries at the ready: make a note of December 3rd 2021. This is when we’ll close the order book for the ‘OO’ gauge Hunslet 16in 0-6-0ST.

Andy’s giving the Engineering Prototypes a thorough going over but we’re pleased to report that there’s not that much that needs fixing. There are seven to choose from, including three NCB colours and two ironstone quarry liveries. Don’t forget that there are sound-versions too.

Look out for a Hunslet-themed video coming soon!

You've got until December 3rd to secure one of these little beauties.

The order deadline for both the GPVs and the SECR open wagons closed on

While we’re on the subject of order deadlines, we’ve placed orders with the factories for both the SECR five- and seven-plank open wagons as well as the Gunpowder Vans. That means that we now have a finite number of these models available.

If you want either an SECR wagon or a Gunpowder Van, get your orders in quick to avoid disappointment. Each order will be on a first-come-first served basis and, for some versions, we’re down to just a couple of dozen pieces left.

So if you go on the website and can’t find what you want, it’s gone. Therefore, it's probably advisable to get the credit card out once you’ve finished reading this newsletter.

We’re also sold out on some versions of Fleetline and so, again, you might want to order now to avoid disappointment.

And why not order a Guy at the same time? We have plenty left!

Some liveries of SECR opens are down to just a couple of dozen remaining. All orders for these products are now on a first-come-first served basis.

A 3D render taken from the completed CAD of our 'N' gauge MetroVick Type 2.

More good news: the Class 28 has been approved for tooling!

Even now, engineers from our factory are cutting metal to make the moulds for what promises to be a super little model. We should, all being well, have some samples to show you in a few months’ time.

The 'OO' gauge '15XX' is going into the mould shop in early October, provided the 3D-printed sample survives our torture tests. The sample should be here any day now and I'll give you a report in the next newsletter.

A 3D render from the GWR Dia. AA20 'Toad' brakevan CAD. It's nearly finished! The UK design team are just working out how to include a feature on the 'Toad' that no other ‘OO’ gauge RTR brakevan has had. But it's getting there.

And here's an almost complete 3D render of The Titfield Thunderbolt Train Pack. Once the design work is finished and we have quotes from the factory, we'll be able to start taking orders. Please be patient for just a little longer!

We haven't forgotten our Bedford OB either. Looking good, isn't it? We've made one pass over the CAD but there's still quite a long way to go before it's finished. But we're really pleased with it so far.

Sole surviving LBSCR 'E1' 0-6-0T No. 110 on display inside Train Story at the Isle of Wight Steam Railway. Photograph: Richard Foster

If you thought that everything seemed to have gone quiet on the Model Rail/Rapido 'OO' gauge LBSCR 'E1' project, there's actually been quite a lot going on behind the scenes.

We cannot say anything more here but there will be an announcement about this project on October 28th 2021. Keep subscribed to the Rapido UK newsletter to be the first to hear the news or look out for Model Rail No. 293 in your local news agent.

The joy of modelling, regardless of whether it’s railways, aircraft or Warhammer, is that it opens your eyes to the world around you. The only way to get realistic scenery is to take note of the natural world. If you make buildings, you look at real structures with a different eye and can soon spot how they were built or have been altered over the years.

But the one factor that we fail to take into account is people. Or rather the human element, the human impact on the world around us. We modellers tend to think in exact measurements, straight lines and perfect right angles.

But we humans are not always that precise and if we don't look at the real world properly, we sometimes think that the world is straight and exact too. Sometimes, however, reality is messy.

For example, you see many absolutely stunning models of Second World War aircraft and any with D-Day ‘invasion’ stripes have them beautifully applied. The edges are crisp and there’s an air of precision about the whole thing. And yet, in reality, those stripes were applied quickly and in haste, using whatever tools were lying around. If a broom could apply paint, then it was used. There was no time to be precise.

Modellers sometimes forget this.

Mosquito RS709, on display at the National Museum of the US Air Force in Ohio, carries the distinctive black and white stripes that indicated to Allied naval and ground forces fighting in mainland Europe that the aircraft was friendly. In wartime, the stripes were not always so neatly applied! Photograph: Stefanie Browne

The same is true when it comes to railway history. There are key people and famous names that keep the story of railway history on the straight and narrow. By doing this, however, we overlook dozens, or possibly hundreds, of railway employees. Taking them into consideration messes up our railway history. It's no longer straight and precise.

I once remember chatting with valvegear expert Don Ashton. Don, who sadly passed away last year, used computer simulations and mathematical formulae to assess the efficiency of different valvegears. During our conversation, he mentioned that he’d discovered that the valvegear of the GWR ‘King’ is markedly more efficient than that of its predecessor, the ‘Castle’.

Most students of steam will know that, effectively, the ‘King’ was a ‘Castle’ with a bigger boiler, smaller driving wheels and a different bogie. But Don’s research proved that someone at Swindon had tweaked the valvegear from something very good to something nigh on perfect.

Who that man was, we’ll never know. He was probably some conscientious draughtsman who knew his job and was just doing his best. But his input messes up our story of the evolution of the 'King'!

Why mention this now?

Pioneer Great Western Railway 'King' No. 6000 King George V on display at the National Railway Museum at York. Who was responsible for making its valvegear more efficient than previous GWR express engines? Photograph: Richard Foster

Well, we discovered the 'human element' when developing the Class 28.

It’s often assumed that every locomotive was built to a set of drawings. That’s broadly true but a drawing was what the designer intended. Those who actually made the parts might actually do something a bit different.

We based a lot of the research of our MetroVick Type 2s on sole-surviving D5705. During the design process, we realised that its cab windows don’t align properly and that there’s an upwards kink in the gutter. No problem, we said, and we instructed the factory to make those changes. But further research revealed that some Class 28s had straight gutters.

It appears that somewhere in the midst of time, someone decided to modify the window position and the shape of the gutter. Again, who made this decision has gone unrecorded and his contribution to railway history is only known to those who have spent ages poring over photographs of Class 28s.

It certainly messed up our plans and so, we've had to make a compromise and gone with the straight, aligned windows. Offering both versions would have required tooling two bodies. Prices would have rocketed and we feel that this is an acceptable compromise to make, particularly when difficult to see at 1:148 scale.

This brings us neatly onto the other human element. Trains were – and largely still are – hand-built. Read any of the many footplate reminiscences books on the market and crews will often talk of one locomotive being better than its apparently identical classmates or, conversely, one being an utter lemon in comparison.

They may have all been built to the same drawings but all it took was one to have been built by a man who was slightly better on a lathe or more skilled with his rivet gun than his colleagues.

As you can imagine, this can wreak havoc on model train design, and - as in the Class 28 - there is always a certain amount of compromise involved. One day we will be able to dial in a specific prototype running number and our replicators will make the correct model, including all the crooked bits. We're not there... yet.

Stay tuned for a future Rapido newsletter when we invent the Star Trek replicator.

You may be waiting a long time, but do please stay tuned...

On a related note, should any of your Rapido models have some wonky bits that shouldn't be there (or are missing!), please contact us! We are in the midst of setting up our warranty department in our new warehouse. If you do have a fault with a Rapido product, don’t hesitate to drop us a line and we’ll do our best to rectify it as quickly as we can.

So that's it for another month. Thank you for making it to the end of another newsletter. We've got loads of exciting plans afoot and, hopefully, it won't be long before we can share more of them with you.

Best wishes,