Rapido Trains UK Special Announcement No.2

©2024 Rapido Trains Ltd

It wouldn’t be a big Rapido announcement without some wagons, would it?

With a strong compliment of Western and Southern Region wagons in our range we thought we should turn our attention north of the Thames, and bolstering your rakes with more wagons that would have been seen across the Midlands and the North.

Rapido Trains UK is proud to announce two new OO Gauge wagons, the GNR 8-Ton Van, and the LMS 20t Iron Ore Hopper, including its variants. 

GNR 8-TON VANS

Designed and built by the Great Northern Railway the 8-ton van was conceived as a multi-purpose, express, covered goods vehicle and was subsequently constructed in numerous variants to accommodate more specialised traffic.

Introduced in the early 1900s they were produced in 4 body styles, non-vented, end and roof vented, end-vent only, and roof-vent only versions. The vans were built on a conventional 10’ 0” wheelbase underframe, however with a length of 22’ 5” over the buffers, and 19’ 0” length over headstocks they were quite long. This made them ideal for quickly transporting a larger number of perishables and goods across the GNR network and beyond.

In addition to the conventional goods traffic, specific versions were also built to transport meat, fruit and other more hazardous materials.

26 of the wagons were converted between 1914 and 1916 to make them suitable for carrying explosives and gunpowder and 49 were subsequently altered following the end of WWI into insulated meat vans.

Versions were also produced for the traffic of fruit, which included fitting shelves on the inside and side steps for easier access. Our research shows these being used for regular services on the adjacent Great Eastern Railway, with Wisbech being a permanent destination marking on some vehicles, so a perfect accompaniment for our J70 tram locomotive.

The GNR works at Doncaster built these in their droves and by 1941 the LNER showed a whopping 1739 vans still in service. Despite a large number of them being scrapped following WW2, just under half of them made it into nationalisation.

Our model will feature the usual wealth of detail, including varying end and roof vents along with stepped and non-stepped versions. The models are available in a wide selection of liveries covering their lengthy service and diverse roles.

Pre-orders are now open for the GNR 8-Ton Vans. Order yours today from any of our Official Retailers or directly from us.

LMS 20-TON IRON ORE HOPPERS

Constructed between the early-1920s and mid-1930s the LMS produced numerous Iron Ore Hoppers using a variety of diagram numbers, however, for the most part, they looked identical. 

With a carrying capacity of 20 tons, the Iron Ore wagons were used for carrying a plethora of raw materials throughout their lifetime and received numerous extensions, additions and alternations in their later life to accommodate their new owners.

Several were converted to carry lime, as such they required a covered roof with a loading hatch. These were issued a new diagram number as Dia. 2194.

The original design clearly proved its worth, as they found several industrial homes once BR had finished with them. The National Coal Board acquired large numbers and to increase their overall carrying capacity many wagons were fitted with wooden planked tops, often dubbed ‘greedy boards’. 

Other more specialised railways also inherited a handful of these multipurpose hoppers, with versions being spotted alongside the eclectic rolling stock of the Longmoor Military Railway in Hampshire, and even some going into service for the British Sugar Corporation. 

A number of LMS 20t iron ore hoppers have thankfully survived into preservation, including the several versions that the lovely folks at Rocks by Rail at Cottesmore let us survey for this project.

This model will be the very first hopper wagon produced by Rapido Trains UK, and we are aiming to set the bar as high as our existing range of other rolling stock. Our model features the usual wealth of detail, tooling variants to cover a selection of the diagrams, a hatched peak roof and greedy board version and metal bearings that will help with the smooth running of the inevitably heavily-laden train.

Pre-orders are now open for the LMS 20t Iron Ore Hoppers. Order yours today from any of our Official Retailers or directly from us.

With 2 new wagon announcements for you to enjoy, we thought we best update you on one of our upcoming freight locos.

These lovely painted engineering samples for the OO Gauge SECR O1 arrived recently, and we know many of you are keen to see the progress of this project, so here they are in all their glory!

Overall we are extremely pleased. However an obvious issue is the grey used in place of matt black, which was caused by a mix up in the factory. The problem has been fed back to the factory for correction prior to production.

We will be showing off these samples along with a selection of other prototypes for the first time at Rapido RailEx in under two weeks’ time, so, if you would like to be amongst the first to see them grab a ticket and come and join us.