According to Chris…
His grandchildren call him ‘Granddad Trains’ and he’s been a dedicated railway modeller since the 1960s but, despite popular legend, Chris Leigh doesn’t remember when dinosaurs roamed the Earth!
Chris reflects on Model Rail’s unique range of limited edition models.
When we launched Model Rail back in 1997, digital magazines were still a little way into the future. One of the initial aims was to have the printed magazine at the heart of a range of products including one-off publications, limited edition models, and VHS video programmes. We began in fine style in that very first issue by bringing together Hornby and Virgin Trains to create the first Model Rail limited edition locomotive, 90001 Mission Impossible. Virgin provided the research information direct to Hornby, so I wasn’t much involved in that project. However, it was during a discussion here in the Model Rail office that Nigel Harris said to me: “Wouldn’t it be nice to see the Model Rail name on a locomotive box – our own exclusive model!” It took a while to reach that point, but in due course it happened, with the wonderful little Sentinel 4WVBT that Ben Jones and his namesake Dave Jones at Dapol produced. It was a perfect choice of prototype and its popularity has endured to the extent that we now have the fourth production run in stock! (See page 108) There followed the Southern ‘USA’ 0-6-0T with Bachmann and we’re now awaiting the second production run of those. Most recently, Richard Foster tackled the daunting task of unravelling the detail differences within the small class of LNER ‘J70’ 0-6-0T tram engines. Immortalised by Rev Awdry as ‘Toby the Tram’, the ‘J70s’ have been a staple for kit manufacturers but have never been offered ready-to-run before. We selected Canadian firm Rapido Trains to tackle this job. Rapido’s six-man team includes one Englishman (a diesel expert) and its UK steam models are handled by an American (Bill Schneider). A little over a year ago I sat in Rapido’s board room in Markham, Toronto, with Jason, Dan and Gareth, and Bill (via Skype video call) as I showed them a kit-built ‘J70’ and shocked them with the news that we wanted this tiny model to haul at least 15 wagons. “We could have a die-cast body.” “If we do it with the doors shut and no internal detail we’ve got plenty of room for a motor inside the body.” “It doesn’t have doors. You can see right inside and the internal detail is really important.” The smallest motor they had was in their Budd RDC railcar, which uses two such motors to power a single vehicle. Dan took a hacksaw to one and in no time he had a test-bed chassis that weighed 150g and had one motor. He found some American boxcars to put behind it. The ‘J70’ concept would need a lot more work. Fresh from solving a similar mechanical haulage conundrum with the GNR Stirling ‘Single’ for Locomotion Models, Bill went on to tackle the ‘J70’ and we received our first engineering prototype to test (MR242). There are still many changes and tweaks to be done, but the good news is that I got to give the little 0-6-0T an extended test run on my layout at home. I exhausted my supply of readily available wagons and had to resort to taking my banana vans out of their boxes, having only recently put them away! The final score was 30 wagons behind the ‘J70’ on 3ft radius curves. Time to start building a Wisbech & Upwell tramway layout, I think.
I shocked them with the news that we wanted this tiny model to haul at least 15 wagons