GWR County (1000 Class): First Look

With the LNER Raven Q6 now released it is time for us to show our next project and as promised it is the last of the GWR two cylinder 4-6-0 engines, the 1000 Class County (not to be confused with the same named 3800 County class, a series of 4-4-0 engines that were designed by Churchward and built four decades earlier).

Credit John Sydney

The "Late" County (as it was also known) was the final development of the two cylinder Saint class (which we also built for Train Simulator) by the Great Western Railway and was designed by Frederick Hawksworth as a test bed for his idea of building a GWR 4-6-2 (Pacific) locomotive, which actually never happened as no more express locomotives were needed at the time. Built at Swindon from 1945 the County had many of the improvements that were taken from the Modified Hall class and with a very high boiler pressure of 280psi as built they had 1000lbs more tractive effort than the Castle class.
No. 1000 "County of Middlesex" was built with a double chimney, whilst the other 29 members of the class were built with single chimneys however under BR No. 1009 "County of Carmarthen" was fitted with an experimental double chimney and 4-row super heater and after successful testing all members of the class received these modifications between 1956-59.

We will be producing all 30 members of the class, in both the late GWR livery and BR livery along with options for double and single chimneys as well as the experimental version. All of our usual standard and advanced features will be included and maybe some extra surprises as well.

Always wanting to improve our products we have already experimented with a new way to create numbering and nameplates for the County and have had some excellent results.
Compare this image of old vs new for the number plates...

Sadly none of the 1000 class Counties were preserved at the end of steam however the Great Western Society at Didcot are currently working on a new build (using many existing, compatible parts) of 1014 "County of Glamorgan" and details can be found at http://www.gwcountyproject.org.uk/index.html

So with the short history lesson aside, how are we getting on? As usual we start with the wheels and a rough boiler shape.

Then the lower frames are added.

Next come the cylinders (just simple shapes at this point), the firebox and a simple cab outline. Add the front buffer beam (and buffers) along with driving and connecting rods and she's starting show those fine lines of a GWR engine.

Lots more WIP images to come next week.