British Railways Standard Class 4MT 2-6-0 launched at Bury

Bachmann Europe Plc today (10 October 2007) launched its new DCC ready OO gauge British Railways 4MT 2-6-0 76000 Class locomotive at the East Lancashire Railway in Bury.



The model was launched alongside Ian Riley's 76079 which was built at Horwich Works in 1957. This locomotive is certified to operate on Network Rail.

Graham Hubbard, Managing Director of Bachmann Europe Plc presented the first two models off the production line to representatives of the East Lancashire Railway and Ian Riley Engineering.



Designed by R.A. Riddles, 115 steam locomotives were built by British Railways between December 1952 and October 1957. Designed for mixed traffic use they were used on a wide variety of freight and passenger workings. They were a development of the much applauded Ivatt 4MT 2-6-0 locomotives released by Bachmann two years ago.

The Standard 4MT 2-6-0 could be found at work across Britain with locomotives allocated to all regions from new with the exception of the Western Region, although some were later transferred there. In Scotland the Class were concentrated around Ayrshire, Glasgow and Lanarkshire. Some did find there way to Thornton in Fife and to Kittybrewster depot in Aberdeen, later moving to the other Aberdeen depot at Ferryhill. On the Southern Region they worked mainly from Brighton and Redhill on the South Central Division and on the South Western Division around Bournemouth, Portsmouth and Southampton. Due to the restricted turntable at Brockenhurst, the 4MTs regularly worked the London Waterloo - Lymington boat trains which connected with the Isle of Wight ferry. North Eastern Region locomotives were allocated to Darlington, Gateshead, Hull, Sunderland and York.

A number of the Class were allocated to Kirkby Stephen on the Stainmore route from Darlington to Tebay and Penrith, where weight restrictions applied on some of the structures across the Pennines. Some were allocated to Stratford before the onslaught of dieselisation on the Great Eastern lines in the early 1960's saw them moved elsewhere. The London Midland Region examples were concentrated in the North West around Liverpool, Manchester and Wigan.

The locomotives were withdrawn between May 1964 and December 1967, just eight months before the end of steam traction on the national rail network. 4 members of the class have been preserved with one example certified to work on special trains over the national network.

To begin with 3 versions of the locomotive will be available. These are:

32-950 - No. 76053 in BR black with BR1B tender with late crest £81.54
32-951 - No. 76069 in BR black with BR1B tender and early crest £81.54
32-952 - No. 76079 in BR black with BR2 tender and late crest £82.95