At midday on Friday, 4th December, in front of the model railway press, Bachmann launched a model which, until then, they had been developing in complete secrecy. As the press gathered at Toddington Station, on the Gloucester & Warwickshire Railway in Warwickshire, and saw the real City of Truro, the secret was out of the bag. So, in front of the full size version at the Gloucestershire Warwickshire Railway (the ‘Honeybourne Line’) 3440 City of Truro was launched.

Ten locomotives of the 'City' Class were built at Swindon in the Spring of 1903. Originally numbered in the series 3433 - 3442 they were renumbered in 1912 to become 3710 – 3719. A further ten locomotives (3400 – 3409) were rebuilt from the 'Atbara' Class between 1902 and 1909 to make a total of 20 locomotives in the new class.

Working the 'Ocean Mails', City of Truro is famous for supposedly being the first locomotive on a train, to travel at 100 mph but the event was not officially recorded. It would be another 30 years before a locomotive was officially recorded at a speed in excess of 100 mph, when Flying Scotsman achieved this on 30th November 1934.

City of Truro was withdrawn in 1931 and preserved in the original York Railway Museum. It now forms part of the National Collection.

Following on from the success of the prototype Deltic diesel locomotive, produced exclusively for the National Railway Museum in late 2007, Bachmann were asked to produced a second exclusive model – the GWR 4-4-0 3440 City of Truro.

As soon as news of the models release was announced the controversy started. There were those who complained at the high price the NRM had set on the model, feeling that the museum should not raise funds this way. There were others who were so delighted with the choice of subject and the quality of the model that they would have been willing to pay more for it. As people received their ordered models, the feelings moved strongly towards the latter camp and discussion started on what the museum should  model next.