New Hornby 20T Standard Brake Van
Between Nationalisation of the railways in 1948 and 1961, British Railways took delivery of over 5000 new brake vans. Early on these included GWR and LMS designs but BR eventually settled on the LNER design and made it their standard. The first Hornby model of this was released in 1967 and was made for 14 years. It was made to fit the chassis of the GWR brake van and was a scale 2ft too short. Interestingly it was not produced in LNER livery but there were some Australian versions of it made.
In 1982 it was replaced by a more detailed model with its own correct length chassis.
This time there were LNER versions (but no Australian ones!). 27 versions of it were made,
including some in interesting modern liveries.
A third version of the standard brake van is now in the shops. This is a highly detailed model with, for the first time, separate handrails and grab rails. Furthermore, they are made in white wire instead of plastic and so stay rigid. Other features are separate running boards, narrow tension-lock couplings in NEM sockets and under floor detail. Two versions are immediately available. These are: R6508 in BR brown and numbered B951410 and R6509 in Departmental green, numbered DB954032.