Photo courtesy Jack Taylor

Last weekend at the Warley Show, 56049 was given a run out on the excellent Deadmans Lane thanks to Mick Bryan. The decent length engineers train provided a nice load to test the haulage capacity of the locomotive.

Photo courtesy Jack Taylor

Thank you also to Jack Taylor for the superb photos capturing 56049 working on Deadmans Lane.

Our thanks to Warley Model Railway Club & Exhibition for a very enjoyable weekend at The NEC.

It was great to display our Class 56 painted samples at the show and talk about the details and features included on the forthcoming models.

Thank you to everyone that took the time to visit our stand over the weekend.

Thanks also to Richard Sulzmann and The Winchester Railway Modellers, 56008 was allocated to a local freight working on Redbridge Wharf.

The final teaser photo of 56008 ahead of this weekend’s Warley National Model Railway Exhibition.

A lot of time and effort has been spent researching the Class 56 in order to best replicate the features and finer details of the prototype in the design of our model.

As can be seen in the above photo showing the fine details that have been incorporated including; the kick plate, see-through cantrail grilles and the bogie with over 36 separately fitted detail parts alone per bogie!

If you are attending the show, please visit our stand, B20, and have a look at the Class 56 samples and other projects that we have on display.

At DEMU Showcase back in July we announced with Ultimate Model Railways the Orenstein & Koppel Yeoman bogie aggregate open box wagon in OO. We are very excited to have received the first Engineering Prototype Samples which will be on display at this weekend’s Warley Show.

Ahead of Warley we wanted to show some of the detail that has been included on our forthcoming Class 56. The first Engineering Prototype samples that we received in July were reviewed and comments passed to the factory for minor tooling tweaks and refinement. One of the areas that we were not happy with was the roof fan grille mesh. The mesh for both versions were redesigned and as can be seen from the photo of the roof of the Romanian built example 56008, the new etch really enhances the model with the authentic weave as per the prototype.

We are pleased to have received the first two batches of our HAA project which have been delivered to KMS Railtech and Trains4U. The factory is working hard to deliver the rest of the range as soon as practically possible.

We would like to thank everyone for their patience and understanding over the past few months during this challenging period.

The factory will be sending the remainder of the range in batches over the next month.

Updates will be provided as and when more information becomes available.

We are really looking forward to the Warley exhibition this weekend!

We will have all four painted class 56 samples on our stand B20 to view, as well as the latest news and samples from other projects!

At GETS earlier this month, we were asked about the compatibility of using Kadee couplings with our Class 56. Thanks to Allan Cromarty and The Stafford Railway Circle, who kindly allowed us conduct a test to test on their layout “Whiteacres”. The locomotive and first wagon were coupled together using Kadee couplings and as can be seen from the below video, no issues were experienced using these type of couplings.

Thanks again to Allan and The Stafford Railway Circle.

One of the characteristics of the Class 56 was the fitting of Slow Speed Control for work on Merry-Go-Round traffic to aid with the loading of coal at Collieries and unloading at Power Stations. This was an important feature that we wanted to include on our model to allow customers to recreate this on their layouts.

As part of the testing process, the EP sample was run at slow speed under load to check that our model can run smoothly at slow speeds.

Here is a video of our 56 sample on Barrow Hill Junction on speed step 6 pulling 36 Cavalex HAAs on test. It is a long video, but we felt that it was important to show this capability of the model.

Our thanks to Michael Rhodes for allowing us to run our 56 and HAAs on Barrow Hill Junction.

Michael Rhodes’ Barrow Hill Junction is featured in the latest issue of Hornby Magazine.

Thank you to everyone that visited our stand over the weekend at the Hornby Magazine Great Electric Train show.

It was very special to see a rake of our HAAs lapping round Making Tracks 2 all weekend - thanks also to Pete Waterman and the Railnuts team for allowing us to haul their HAAs with our 56 EP sample! Looking forward to the painted samples arriving