Rapido 989003 OO Gauge GNR C2 4-4-2 Tank 1511 GNR Grey

New locomotives were required for local passenger services in the West Riding of Yorkshire. The Great Northern Railway#s loco designer, Henry Ivatt, set to work and swiftly settled on a wheel arrangement that had already proven successful for the GNR, the now famous Atlantic 4-4-2.

With the first ten locos rolling out of Doncaster works in 1898, the GNR classified them as the C2 Class tank engine. They quickly proved their worth, so the GNR continued building the class in batches of 10 until the 60th example was completed in 1907.

The final fifty of the class were built with condensing apparatus, so they were suitable to work through the tunnels of the Metropolitan Widened Lines in London.

When the N1 Class arrived the London-based C2 locos soon lost some of the heavier work on the widened lines and suburban services, but remained in service and covered many of the lighter trains. It wasn#t until the arrival of the N2 class in 1920 that they were finally usurped from underground work.

They were still incredibly useful locomotives, packing quite a reasonable amount of power for their modest size, so were reallocated in 1922. This led to the GNR dispersing them to a multitude of locations such as Leeds, Peterborough, Grantham and Bradford.

Under their new LNER ownership in 1923, the C2 tanks were reclassified as the C12. The LNER subsequently spread the C12 way beyond the bounds of the old GNR network. In the early 1930s, ten examples were sent to Hull Botanical Gardens of the former Great Central Railway. Six more would follow shortly after.

Ten of the class were withdrawn during 1937-8; the remaining members would be redeployed to other far-flung reaches of the LNER. This included the Manchester District, sheds on the former Great Eastern Railway, and the Midland and Great Northern Railway.

The LNER scrapped only one more example before the Nationalisation of the railways in 1948. So, BR went on to inherit forty-nine of the class.

The last surviving example was No.67397. It had spent most of its existence as a Hull-based loco, but was withdrawn at the end of 1958 from Grantham. Sadly, none were preserved, and the class has been consigned to the history books#Until now!

The highly-detailed OO Gauge rendition of the LNER C12 4-4-2T from Rapido Trains UK will be available in a variety of liveries. These include several pre-grouping variants, and a selection of grouping and nationalisation era examples that were shedded across the wider Eastern region network.

Throughout the range, there are so many detail variations that only two models have the same selection of parts. These differences include chimneys, domes, safety valves, round and flared or square bunkers, round or square tank corners, condensing pipes, three designs of coal rails, and many more!