It's February, and we are putting the winter blues behind us!

With the taste of Haggis still lingering from Burns Night celebrations, we can finally lift the kilt on our secret Model Rail Scotland plan, and give everyone a surprise.

We shall raise a wee dram to our upcoming spectacularly Scottish Spring, with new announcements, important product updates, some colourful Highland prototypes and one long weekend ahead for the Rapido team. Hopefully we can put an even bigger smile on the faces of our friends who live north of the border.

So, let's charge headlong into this month and our first-ever Model Rail Scotland.

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We’re putting hard-working firemen out of a job with a new announcement of a chuffing Caledonia.

We love steam locos at Rapido, and most of them follow similar design principles. The Andrew Barclay 0-4-0 Fireless well and truly takes the design rulebook and throws it out of the window. We are very proud to bring you the first ever ready-to-run OO Gauge British Fireless locomotive!

As the railways established themselves as a reliable method to transport goods, one problem came to the fore – fire. Steam locos fundamentally need a heat source created from some form of fire to turn water into steam. However, this fire (alongside sparks emitted from the chimney) caused great concern in environments where munitions, fuel or other flammable materials were being moved or stored.

The solution to the frustratingly flammable freight is a locomotive that won't spark or have a naked flame on board. In more recent years the the answer would be simple - utilise a flameproof diesel or electric-powered loco. However, at the turn of the last century these types of locomotives were just glints in the eyes of railway operators.

Thankfully, some bright spark had the clever idea of harnessing steam power in a large rechargeable steam reservoir, which would sit in place of the boiler of a conventional steam locomotive. This reservoir would be filled with a mix of boiling water and steam at high pressure. As the locomotive worked, the steam would be used and thus the pressure in the reservoir would drop. This in turn allowed the water to start to boil, replacing the steam that had been used. With this method, a locomotive could work for about 4 hours before recharging.

Whether you love or loathe its functional and raw design, you would be hard-pressed to argue that the Fireless didn’t push the boundaries of railway design. Engineered to be simple and rugged, they could run anywhere there was an existing steam supply and allowed single-man working. They were also very cheap to maintain. The Fireless was a true pioneer of rechargeable transportation.

The largest number of British-built Fireless locomotives was constructed by Andrew Barclay & Co. Ltd.: an impressive 114 were built between 1913 and 1961 of varying designs. It was only fitting that we pick the most numerous of Barclay’s prototypes, the ‘Caledonia’, to produce as the very first ready-to-run OO Gauge British Fireless loco.

These industrial oddities survived far longer than most British Railways and industrial coal-fired steam locos with many examples working into the 1980s and even into the 1990s.

We wanted to represent locos from the 1920s right through to the present day, so we have given a choice of a variety of liveries covering the loco's lengthy history, including two generic variants which represent a typical early and late style ‘Caledonia’ ideal for any industrial layout! We’ve even included a very long-lived loco (Croda Chemical Works) believed to be one of the last working Fireless locomotives in the UK, and potentially the last steam locomotive in regular industrial use across the nation. Perfect to run alongside more modern traction!

These quirky little engines had so many tweaks and subtle changes added over the years that we simply couldn’t cover them all, but we've added a selection of interesting polybag parts such as oil and electric lamps, cab side windows, low doors, shutters and full cab doors. That way you can personalise them to your heart's content!

DCC Ready and DCC Sound-Fitted options are available. Sound models will be equipped with an ESU LokSound 5 NANO decoder (using an E24 interface) whilst DCC Ready models will have factory-fitted speakers as standard to aid easy upgrading.

Oh, despite it being a popular feature of model railway steam locomotives we can confirm that there is absolutely no firebox flicker!

The design is complete and going into tooling as soon as the factories reopen from their new year break. The order book is open, and you can pre-order your DCC Ready (RRP £139.95) or DCC Sound Fitted (RRP £249.95) now by clicking the button below or visiting any Official Retailer.

The railways of Scotland are sparsely represented in OO Gauge ready-to-run, so we are pleased to buck the trend and bring you the Caledonian Railway Dia.67 Van.

Spanning Scotland from east to west, the Caledonian Railway owned lines from Aberdeen to Annan, including some of the most scenic railway vistas in the UK. This widespread railway not only served the majority of Scotland's major cities but also a huge amount of industry and commerce throughout its 76-year history.

Routes to the most highly populated areas of the country were the largest source of traffic. The company's goal of providing competitive cross-border services and excursion trains to the coast grew that traffic enormously.

Along with the towns and cities, access to the numerous ports that were dotted along the Firths of the Clyde and Forth meant there was a steady stream of laden freight wagons moving into and out of the area. As the turn of the century approached, a need arose for suitable stock to transport explosives safely.

73007 inside the museum building at the Bo'ness and Kinneil Railway.

In 1903, the first Diagram 67 van rolled off the production line. R.Y. Pickering constructed 150, Motherwell Wagon & Rolling Stock Co. 25 and Renshaw another 25. This initial batch was the first of many and by the time a further batch had been ordered in 1907 the initial design had been revised to replace the roof door with end ventilators.

Shortly after the outbreak of WW1, the Traffic Committee authorised the conversion of several Dia.67 vans to carry cordite paste, a key component in the creation of artillery shells. They must have proven successful as two more batches of 150 vans were ordered in 1917. By 1918, over 1300 examples of the vans had been constructed.

Continuing through the grouping era and into nationalisation the Dia.67 travelled far and wide across the UK, finding themselves much further afield than their native land. Several even ended up in the hands of some rather interesting private companies including Britain's most famous confectioner, Cadbury. Numerous Dia.67 Vans have survived into preservation, including the Scottish Railway Preservation Society's two examples at Bo'ness.

Our upcoming model includes livery variants including eye-catching Caledonian wagon oxide for the pre-grouping examples, several LMS and BR variants, and a selection of popular private owner brands, such as Cadbury, NCB, PLA and RNAD.

In much the same way as our previously released wagons, the Dia.67 Vans feature full external and underframe details including brass bearings for smooth friction-free running and NEM coupling pockets. We have tooled for unfitted Morton hand brakes, vacuum and Westinghouse air brakes alongside two different axle box and spring arrangements and two different wheel styles.

The order book is open and the models are currently in tooling with 22 different versions available to pre-order now. (RRP £34.95).

You can find out more about the Caledonian Railway Dia.67 Van and pre-order them today by clicking the button below or by visiting any of our Official Retailers now.

These colourful coal carriers are on their way!

The shifting nature of world shipping has forced us to roll with the punches and accept that delays may occur. Due to the popularity of this release and the sheer volume of them needed to satisfy all of our eager customers, we’ve reluctantly had to split up the delivery.

Fear not, they are all on their way! However, we have chosen to have the wagons that will complete the “Inspired by Titfield” Wagon Packs sent through first. By the time you read this they will have arrived in our warehouse. Once they have had their checks they will start to head out to customers.

The remaining liveries, versions, and retailer exclusives left the factory before it closed for Chinese New Year and are on a boat ready to set sail to the UK with a planned arrival in mid-March.

As previously mentioned, the turbulent nature of shipping at the moment does add numerous unavoidable variables, so these dates are current projections and best-case scenarios. We will keep you updated if things change, but don’t let it be a shock if these dates do have to sadly move.

Another imminent arrival comprises our O11/O15 opens, V14/V16 and Y4 banana vans. These have arrived into a UK port and are in the process of being unloaded. Once cleared we will process them as soon as possible with the hope to have them in your hands in late February or early March.

That’s right Mr Jones, you aren’t the only Jones who shouldn’t panic. There was a great sigh of relief when the eye-popping pre-production colour samples of the upcoming Highland Railway ‘Jones Goods’ 4-6-0 arrived at our HQ and just in the nick of time for Model Rail Scotland. Before this, we had been showing off the unpainted but running samples over the last few months, and have been very pleased with the feedback you’ve given us.

But, let's be honest, the ‘Jones Goods’ is a stunning loco, and the unpainted version didn’t show you one of its nicest features, the liveries. Thankfully, there is no need to panic! The factory has pulled out all the stops to bring some striking – if somewhat unfinished – painted versions of what's to come.

We will be bringing them to Scotland next week for you to feast your eyes on for the first time. Please note these are pre-production samples and there are many areas to improve and refine, but we still think you will like to see them. Many areas of these samples are great -– the lining on the wheel spokes being particularly impressive. However, some areas are far from ideal and we will be working with the factory to resolve these outstanding issues.

For those of you who can’t make the show, we hope you've enjoyed this selection of photos of the samples. These will be delivered later this year.

Even this month's closing order book has a somewhat Scottish theme. Well, the loco's designer was Scottish at least! (We aren’t clutching at straws, we promise!)

Thanks to the previous work we had done on the Stirling Single's initial release we have been able to make much faster progress with the more recently announced Stirling Single No.1 in 'small tender' condition and are now ready to move the project into production.

As such we will will be closing the order books on Monday 4th of March.

If you’re keen to get your hands on this incredible model you can still order them either directly through our website or from any of our Official Retailers.

Until then, enjoy these photos of our painted sample running on Tony Wright's superb Little Bytham layout.

We also recently closed the order books on the following:

-         OO Gauge LNER Y7 (NER H)

-         OO Gauge LNER/LMS 25t LOWMAC Machine Wagon

We have sold out of some versions, however, many of our Official Retailers still have some available, so if the one you are looking for is showing as 'sold out' on our website, we recommend you contact your preferred retailer as soon as possible.

Like many a hobbyist, one of our staff found themselves going down a late-night railway-related retail rabbit hole. Usually, this ends up in a gleeful purchase, but on this occasion, they signed off with some rather useful info, a predicament, and no new toys.

We spend many hours researching loco designs and their liveries and when we are totally confident they are correct we proceed, however, on occasion we miss something or misinterpret info.

Having spent some time trawling through a well-known auction site one of our team stumbled across a previously-unseen colour image of one of our upcoming locomotives, the 16″ Hunslet – Clement SKU- 903014 / 903514. We hadn’t seen this image before, so it came as quite a surprise that it had green wheels.

To ensure the loco is correct we have elected to amend the art of the final product, so it is now correct. That’s right, we managed to make one of the most in-your-face liveries we have ever made even less subtle.

You can pre-order and find out more about Clement and the rest of Batch 2 of the 16″ Hunslets via the button below.

Just ahead of this newsletter being written, we received a parcel of prototypes from our factory. As fans of the LBSCR, it would be an understatement to say that our staff have been looking forward to seeing it and we suspect a lot of you are, too.

We are pleased to say that we have received running engineering prototypes of the highly anticipated LBSCR E1.

In newsletter No.38, (published last December) we went into a bit more detail about the tooling variants that the E1 will feature, in case you missed it, you can check it out by clicking HERE.

We are going to review them in more depth over the next few weeks, but we will have them on show for you to enjoy at both Model Rail Scotland and The London Festival of Railway Modelling. If you want to see them in all their glory, pop by our stand for a closer look.

Early this month we announced on our social media channels that a small number of mystery boxes would be available for purchase. The model railway world has been awash with familiar boxes this month, so it's nice to continue bucking the trend and announce a box of models that is an utter mystery to everyone (except for Chris, who packs them).

Wagons, locomotives, train packs, and random Rapido swag can be yours! What’s inside is a mystery, but we promise that whatever it is, it will be worth a lot more than the overall cost. We think you will be chuffed.

Two tiers are yours to choose from, the £100 tier and the £250 tier. VERY limited quantities will be available exclusively through our online store, so grab them before they depart!

Our £100 Mystery Boxes contain models worth over £150 plus extra merchandise.

Our £250 Mystery Boxes contain models worth over £400 and will include a Rapido Trains UK livery limited edition Iron Mink (only 100 made for staff and our wider team so VERY exclusive) alongside some extra merchandise. The Iron Minks are only available while supplies last.

But please don’t contact us asking what’s in each one. It’s a mystery box: the clue is in the name!

They have been immensely popular, so, if you are considering grabbing one of these incredible value boxes, we’d suggest you do so before they all mysteriously disappear.

Now we’ve been able to reveal the awesome new announcements and the colour pre-production samples of the upcoming Highland Railway ‘Jones Goods’ it's fair to say that we’ve got a fair chunk of things to show you at the upcoming Model Rail Scotland.

With more Scottish prototypes filling our cabinets than any other manufacturer (as far as we are aware), we are proud to be able to bring a fairly underrepresented area of the UK’s railways to the forefront of hobbyists' attention.

In case you missed the images above, we will have 3D printed prototypes of both the newly announced Andrew Barclay 0-4-0 Fireless locomotive and the Caledonian Railway Dia.67 Van on show for the very first time, and if you are looking forward to the ‘Jones Goods’ then make sure you head over to the stand because you won't be disappointed. The coloured pre-production samples look glorious, and we will be squeezing as many of them in the cabinet as we can.

It doesn’t stop there either! We wouldn’t want you to think we only bring the big guns to our shows south of the border, so we will be packing the full stand that we took to Warley in November, including a plethora of other upcoming samples.

We have wanted to do this show for years and look forward to finally speaking to many of our Scottish followers for the first time. We will be happy to answer any questions you may have for us, so pop by and have a chat. We are generally well-fed at shows so we don’t bite.

Next week's three-day event will be held at the Scottish Event Campus in Glasgow and is from Fri 23^rd to Sun 25^th of February.

You can find out more about the event and grab your tickets at:

We can't wait to speak to you all, so please make sure you visit our stand!

This was originally written as January's Thought of the Month, but, with the ongoing changes in the industry, we felt it only respectful to talk about the most pressing subject, rather than getting excited about our own toys. So, in light of that thought-provoking piece, here is us getting back on track with our usual silly selves.

There is always talk this time of year of self-improvement and resolutions. (Ed.: well, last month anyway.) We thought it might be a bit of fun to get in the spirit of things, share what hobby goals some of us have for the year and see what's in your crosshairs!

Andy: the lads keep winding me up about doing a GWR branch line layout, but in all seriousness I have just ordered the baseboards to start a Col Stephens light railway based layout...

Chris P: My hobby goals are simple, I wanted to enter something into the modelling competition at my local club this year, and I've already got a loco repaint in mind. I missed the deadline by a couple of days, so I'll enter it next year. I'd also love to get an example of my work completed and added to one of my colleagues' Thomas-themed N Gauge layout.

Linny: I’ve been working on a model of the Edinburgh trams, I’ve made incredible progress so far but my aim this year is to get a print made of my design, and finally see it trundling around our club's Haymarket layout.

Dan H: My modelling goal for 2024 is to complete a test track at home so I can play with my own toys, and maybe test some samples of future products. Oh, and build/buy more wagons for Jamie to weather for me. You’re welcome, Jamie.

Jamie: I’m taking a leaf out of (fellow designer) Dan's book and wading into 009. I'd like to have some progress on my layout by the end of the year at the very least. …And by the sound of it, I’ll be weathering Dan's wagons for him.

Corwin: I’d like to continue with my current kitbashing ventures, but I’d like a bit more luck this year, maybe if one of them could run like a dream by the end of 2024 that would be nice!

Even the new guy has got some hobby goals!

Mark: My hobby goal for 2024 would be to make a start on scratch building some Western Australian rolling stock for my planned future layout...

Steve H: Build Lego!

Tom: With lots of projects already on the go I highly suspect I will get distracted by more projects. However, getting my O-16.5 layout up and running would be good. Oh, and expanding my fleet of industrial locos beyond any reasonable level!

Chris M: I will be expanding on my new layout. I’d like to give it a more industrial feel as I have several industrial buildings and accessories. Hopefully, I can also find space for the lovely new windmill and oast house I picked up recently, giving my layout a suitably Kentish feel. The rest of the lads at work have volunteered to help get it done, so it should be a nice group project.

Bill: My goal is to get rough scenery in on the remainder of my layout, which is a double-deck, HO scale representation of the New York, Ontario and Western Railway in 1947. This is a far more interesting railroad to model than VIA Rail Canada, which is made up of boring passenger trains that don't really do anything except stop at bland new steel and concrete stations.

Jason: I hope to get Guildwood Station and its surrounding area finished. Guildwood is a suburban Toronto steel and concrete station built in 1978. I model VIA Rail Canada passenger operations in 1980. I think this is much more exciting than the O&W modelled by Bill, my now former employee.

So, that’s our entire team looking forward to the year ahead. Now it's time to get the van packed for Model Rail Scotland.

See you this time next week in Glasgow!