Heljan Metropolitan Bo-Bo

With the railway continuing to display a penchant for the unusual, here we see yet another motive power curiosity recently spotted standing in the Middle Road at Sueston station and, clearly, attracting the attention of those standing on the platform.

This rather attractive loco is a Heljan Metropolitan Railway Electric Bo-Bo Nº 9, named 'John Milton' (Catalogue Nº: 9001) and she joins the two Class 20s that we have, by Bachmann, which are also in this London Transport livery.

Twenty of these locos were manufactured and 19 of them were named after people, both real and fictitious, who had connections with the area that was served by the Metropolitan Railway. 

The one exception was Nº 15, which was exhibited on the Metropolitan Railway's stand at The British Empire Exhibition in 1925. Because of this it was named Wembley 1924.

Fortunately two of them have been preserved, namely Nº 5 'John Hampden', which is now a static display at the London Transport Museum, and Nº  12 'Sarah Siddons, which is, happily, in working order.

These locos were, of course, electric and operated from the fourth rail with the London Underground being one of only a few networks to use this.

With the Lakeland Railway not having a fourth or even a third rail, this loco should not, strictly speaking, be able to run on our railway. However, it is our railway so we should be able to run what we like and it would be rather nice to use it on the Niggly Bottom branch line which does, in fact, disappear into a tunnel from Sueston station.

One thing I have not decided on, as yet, is whether to fit a sound or non-sound DCC decoder. That decision is for another day.

RTC Liveried Locomotives

Four RTC liveried locomotives have recently joined the railway and these now complement an extensive rake of similarly liveried rolling stock.

However, more of that later.

As far as the locos are concerned, all of them were commissioned by ModelZone, with three being produced by Bachmann and one by Heljan.

They are as follows:

Bachmann Class 08 97800 'Ivor'

'Ivor' becomes the second 'Gronk' in our fleet, joining Hornby's D3105, which we have had since 2010.

The Catalogue Nº is 32-102W and only 500 of these models were produced in 2004.

Bachmann Class 24 97201 

This is now our third Class 24, with the other two being 24081, in BR blue livery, and D5040, in BR green livery. Both of these are by Sutton Loco Works and excellent models they are too!

The Catalogue Nº for 97201 is 32-425X and 504 were produced in 2011 although Bachmann have now added a version to their current range, named 'Experiment', with the Catalogue Nº 32-444.

 Bachmann Class 46 97403 'Ixion'

 

The third and largest of the Bachmann models is this 'Peak,' which means we now have a Class 44, 45 and 46 in the fleet.

The Catalogue Nº is 32-700Z and 750 of these models were produced in, I believe, 2002.

 Heljan W&M Railbus 999507

The last loco in this RTC quartet is a Waggon and Maschinenbau Railbus and Heljan produced 500 of these models in 2013, with the Catalogue Nº 8710.

We already have a green liveried version that primarily operates the branch line to Niggly Bottom, which therefore means we have two fifths of the prototype fleet, with four of the five fortunately being preserved.