Masterclass: ‘16XX’
Chris Leigh previews the Model Rail/rapido ‘16XX’ 0-6-0T and researches the individual prototypes.
A detailed look at the ‘16XX’ and the 22 versions offered by Model Rail in ‘OO’ gauge.
It seems a long time since I brought my unfinished Cotswold kit-built ‘16XX’ into the office to show to those on our team who are not familiar with GWR pannier tanks. Three years
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earlier I had taken a kit-built ‘J70’ to Toronto to show the Rapido team what we were asking them to make for us. At least, this time, Rapido’s steam supremo Bill Schneider is a GWR modeller so he wasn’t just familiar with the ‘16XX’, he actually wanted one for his own layout! Bill designed the ‘16XX’ and oversaw it through to completion.
I think, before I go much further into the ‘16XX’ story, I should give credit to the other person who master-minded this latest Model Rail exclusive production. Model Rail’s
former editor, Richard Foster, led the project from the outset and did the research. This included trips to the Kent & East Sussex Railway to examine, measure and photograph
Branch closures and the spread of the 204hp 0-6-0 diesel shunter were combining to eliminate the need for the ‘16XXS’
No. 1638, the only surviving member of the class, which once numbered 70 locomotives. Following on from the very highly rated ‘J70’ 0-6-0T, the pannier posed a different set of design problems for Bill, because ‘daylight’ and detail was needed under the boiler, while the ‘J70’ has its boiler detail largely hidden within the body shell. It doesn’t matter that you can’t see much of it, the ‘J70’ has its full complement of internal detail, too, as one expects with ” a Rapido product. Richard Foster told the story of the Hawksworthdesigned ‘16XX’ class in Model Rail 280 (November 2020) so, suffice to say here that F.W. Hawksworth’s lightweight 0-6-0PT was intended to replace elderly 2021 class pannier tanks which were life-expired. Though designed and ordered just before nationalisation in 1948, the 70 locomotives were built at Swindon between 1949-55. They received a class A power rating and were unclassified in the GWR’S weight restriction system, which meant they could go anywhere.
‘16XXS’ were allocated throughout the former GWR system from Slough to South and West Wales, the West Midlands and St Blazey in Cornwall. Even as they were built, the decline in traffic over lightweight branch lines, branch closures and the spread of the 204hp 0-6-0 diesel shunter were combining to eliminate the need for the ‘16XXS’.
Towards the end of their careers, two members of the class were sent to the far north of Scotland to work the light railway between The Mound and Dornoch after the indigenous
Highland Railway 0-4-4T broke its crank axle and was withdrawn. Two more served for a short time with the National Coal Board after being sold by BR. Only one, No. 1638, was privately purchased, for the Dart Valley Railway, but when the company later put it up for sale, the DVR successor, South Devon Railway, could not afford to buy it. Instead, it was acquired by the Kent & East Sussex Railway, being ideal for the Tenterdenbodiam light railway, although no ‘16XX’ had previously run in that area.