The Engine Shed: One Year On

A very warm welcome to you, model railway enthusiasts around the world. We are in a particularly good mood today as this blog, number twenty seven, marks our first anniversary! What a journey we’ve been on since 17th March 2015 when we nervously launched our first edition of The Engine Shed. We really didn't know how this new way of communicating our product news would be received, but the vast majority of comments and feedback on both the Hornby Forum and external forums showed that this new approach worked.

Over the past year Engine Shed has become the central source of new product news from Hornby, with the unveiling of new models in development many months before the traditional range launch in January. Future stars of the 2016 range, such as the SR 58’ Maunsell Rebuilt (ex-LSWR 48’) Coaches and Peckett W4 0-4-0ST were first announced here at the beginning of their development.

We even came close (did we mention that it was by one vote?) to winning Best Website in the British Model Railway Awards.

We really have tremendously enjoyed writing these blogs every two weeks and we would like to thank you all once again for reading. Please keep your comments coming, it's always good to hear your feedback and suggestions for the blog.

Let’s move on with business as usual - we have a number of very exciting products arriving that will be available on our website and at model retailers near you very soon, so we thought we’d take a look at these exciting new releases in a little more detail. We're still waiting to receive some new pre-production samples that we can show you, but rest assured that Engine Shed will be back to normal in the next few weeks with exclusive news and the announcement of future models...

BR 4-4-0 Fowler 2P Class '40626'

Fowler 2P '40688' awaits departure from Kilmarnock with a local train to St. Enoch's on 17th September 1957

Arriving next week, R3459TTS BR 4-4-0 Fowler 2P Class '40626' is among the many TTS releases we've seen so far in 2016. It was originally designed by Sir Henry Fowler for light passenger work and gave a steady performance in traffic. The 2P's sturdy and simple construction, coupled to its light secondary duties, did mean low maintenance costs though – in fact they were the lowest average repair cost in pence per mile of any LMS passenger type. In addition to being employed by the LMS, three of the locomotives were allocated from new to the Somerset and Dorset Joint Railway (S&DJR). 2P locomotivess were often double-headed where loads dictated, primarily as the LMS had a shortage of larger heavy duty or express locomotives for such services.

Typically delivered painted in a red lined, LMS black livery, other colour schemes did prevail. The S&DJR locomotives were painted Prussian Blue and in later BR days the locomotives were appropriately lined out for mixed traffic working in accordance with British Railways policy. Their use on the steeply graded S&DJR between Bournemouth West and Bath Green Park was a particularly interesting development, given that their large 6ft 6½in diameter driving wheels were not considered ideal for lines of this type. Nevertheless, they put in a lot of useful work over this challenging route, frequently being found paired with Bulleid Pacifics or Standard classes, hauling heavy express passenger services such as the Pines Express.

Locomotive 40626 entered service during December 1929 as LMS 626, having been built at Derby under order number Ord074 to Lot 67. The locomotive’s early allocation is unclear, but post-war it was allocated to Ardrossan Shed in Ayrshire before being allocated to Hurlford Shed on June 6, 1959, where it ended its days. Withdrawn from service on October 31, 1961, the locomotive was removed to Inverrurie Works where it was disposed of a month later.

Check out our video of the locomotive, showcasing some of the sounds you can expect to hear on your layout.

Eight-coupled Tanks - 42xx, 52xx and 72xx

Swansea_East_Dock_Locomotive_Depot_geograph-2541297-by-Ben-Brooksbank

Another great family of locos to look out for are the Eight-coupled Tanks. The Great Western Railway’s large Class 42xx, 52xx and 72xx tank engines were an evolution of a design first conceived in 1906 by George Jackson Churchward, Chief Mechanical Engineer of the Great Western Railway between 1902 and 1922. The 2-8-0 Class 42xx was the first of its type to be used in Britain and arose because of a need for a powerful freight locomotive capable of handling increasing heavy mineral loads, especially in South Wales.

The BR 2-8-0 '4287' 42xx Class - Late BR has just arrived, with its sister locos BR 2-8-0 '5231' 52xx Class - Early BR and BR 2-8-2 '7224' 72xx Class - Late BR arriving next week and available from selected stockists nationwide.

Class 08 Shunters

As we’re sure many of you are aware, if you run solely passenger traffic on your layout, or have a more complex set of sidings, there will always be occasions when rolling stock needs to be moved and sorted. Well, arriving next week are three really rather attractive Class 08s in Network Rail, FGW and BR liveries, that will make light work of construction of a rake of passenger coaches or putting together freight wagons in the sidings.

Constructed between 1953 and 1962 at Crewe, Darlington and Doncaster, the Class 08 0-6-0 diesel electric shunter became British Railways' largest fleet of locomotives. They were in operation in most, if not all areas of the UK and are expected to remain in service for the foreseeable future.

Do you use shunters on your layout for constructing rakes of coaches or for short trip workings? Will these Class 08s be joining your collection? We’d love to see them in action on your layout, be sure to post your pictures or videos on our Facebook page! You might even get a mention in our next blog!

Would you like your picture to be our next Desktop Calendar Wallpaper?

Since the launch of our Customer Images function last year, which lets you upload your own model images to the individual product pages, we've been overwhelmed with the number and quality of your images to date, thousands of you have shared your model images on the site.

This week we’re launching a new Customer Images Gallery where you can view all of the Customer Images in a central gallery, and search by product name or product type.

To celebrate the launch we're going to choose one customer image from the gallery to appear on the Desktop Calendar Wallpaper in May! All images that have been uploaded from January to the end of March will be considered, so if you haven't already shared your images with us, now's your chance!

hornbyCI

Sharing your images is simple - just scroll down to the Customer Images section on the product page of the model that you've photographed and follow the instructions.

At the beginning of April a judging panel from Hornby, including the Product Development Manager, Marketing Manager and Head of Online, will select a favourite image to use for May's calendar wallpaper. We're already spoilt for choice, but if you think you can do better then upload your image now.

Birthday Competition

Well that about wraps it up for this week, apart from one final celebration - we’re giving you the chance to win a special Engine Shed birthday prize package. The winner will receive a piece of Engine Shed history, one of the first pre-production samples to be featured in the blog, the stereo sample of none-other than the J50 Class. And that's not all, we'll also throw in a brand new train pack that hit the shelves a couple of weeks ago, the "Going Home" - 1945-2015: 70th Anniversary of the end of WWII Train Pack - Limited Edition. To get your hands on this little lot, simply head to our competition page and answer the simple question.

Thanks very much for reading everyone, and thank you for tuning in each fortnight. As always if you have any ideas or suggestions for future Engine Shed subjects please do let us know on Facebook, Twitter or on our Official Forum. Or, if you’re heading off to The London Festival of Railway Modelling this week at the legendary Alexandra Place, you can talk to us there, we’ll be on stand 51 raring to go!