Last weekend saw the Warley National Model Railway Exhibition at the NEC,  as in previous years I have always endeavoured to round-up some of the news and items of interest from mainly a Southern / BR(s) perspective.  It has been usual for some of the manufacturers to use the event to make announcements of new items or showcase updates to new products under development, this year however relevant new announcements of any kind were very thin on the ground. Hornby and Bachmann generally do not make new product announcements at Warley and will be announcing their new ranges in January next year, other manufactures such as Heljan made a couple of announcements in the week leading up to the Warley show. However I can post a few recent SR  / BR(s) related updates / news below.

Heljan

The only Heljan SR related announcement leading up to Warley was the addition to their 009 range of Lynton & Barnstaple Railway Baldwin 2-4-2T Lyn that completes the Lynton & Barnstaple Railway locomotive fleet. Lyn was built by Baldwin in 1898 for the L&BR and shipped to Devon in kit form for assembly at Pilton Works. At the time, the railway needed additional motive power but Manning, Wardle was unable to supply a similar machine to those already in service (and further models of the Manning and Wardle locomotives will be available in December/January OO9 from Heljan, livery samples were on show and I shall possibly update this post with a couple of images in due course).

The new model will depict Lyn in L&BR dark olive green and Southern Railway Maunsell green with authentic detail variations according to period and livery. The initial research work is underway and more details about price, features and specification will be announced later.
Proposed liveries so far announced are as follows:

• 9980: Works black unnumbered
• 9981: L&BR dark olive green Lyn (original chimney)
• 9982: L&BR dark green E762 Lyn (with stovepipe chimney and SR numberplate)
• 9983: Southern Maunsell green E762 Lyn (pre-1932)
• 9984: Southern Maunsell green E762 Lyn (post-1932)

Expected Release in 2020. Other new models recently announced by Heljan include a new class 86/1 in 00 and a Clayton Class 17 in 0.

Rails of Sheffield / NRM/ Dapol 00 Terrier

Rails Limited in partnership with Dapol and the National Railway Museum announced at this years London Festival of Railway Modelling in March that they will produce the LBSC Terrier and all its subsequent variants in OO Gauge. 

On display on the both the Rails and Dapol stands were a couple of Engineering Prototype tooling components in the shape of the one of the cab versions, boiler top and side tanks. It is still very early days in the process but good to see some progress being made and I look forward to seeing more of the EP parts etc in due course.

Dapol

A bit of a catch up as this was announced a few weeks ago but Dapol have also announced that the previously halted work on the N Gauge Bulleid West County and Battle of Britain light pacifics, has recommence for the original air smoothed versions, at least, they do not appear to advised that the rebuilt version will also be re-instated. The versions that appear to be on the cards, with an anticipated release date of early 2020, are as follows:

• Battle of Britain ‘Fighter Command’ 21C164 in SR Malachite Green
• Battle of Britain ‘Spitfire’ 34066 BR Green Late Crest
• TBC BR Green Early Crest
• West Country ‘Okehampton’ SR Malachite Green 21C113
• West Country ‘Watersmeet’ 34030 BR Green Late Crest
• West Country ‘Exeter’ 34001 BR Green Early Crest Dapol Collectors Club ‘2019 Club Special’

I hope that comments previously provided to Dapol after the release of their first CADs get taken onboard further details and specification are still to be confirmed.

Bachmann

Although as stated above no new announcements were expected or indeed made by Bachmann.

They had on display again the 2HAP (Class 414) EMU first announced in March 2016  Engineering Prototype, see my earlier post here for a couple of pictures. Three livery versions will initially be released being: BR green livery, BR blue & grey livery and Network South East livery.

Also on display was the second Engineering Prototype stage is the the  3 car 159 Class annopunced in January this year which is being  released as No. 159013 in Network South East livery.

and finally…

Very many thanks to all those who found me, somewhat out of my comfort zone, operating the Hornby Magazine West Coast Cement layout, being non Southern, DCC  amd Modelrn Image… enabling me to at least talk about a few Southern topics… It was,  as always, good to meet readers of this little corner of the web!
Warley is one of the  only shows where due to the nature of the other exhibitions taking  place at the NEC where you can share a hotel lift heading for breakfast with a leather clad biker and hobbit in full cosplay outfit!