The real locomotives were introduced in 1932 for light branch line duties and had push-pull equipment. They replaced locomotives of the 517 Class which had been built in the 1870s. Initially 75 of the new locos were built and a further 20 without the push-pull equipment. The last was withdrawn in 1965 and four have been preserved.

The model of the GWR Class 14xx 0-4-2 tank locomotive first appeared in the Airfix catalogue in 1978 and two versions were made. Although Palitoy acquired the tooling in 1981, they did not get around to producing any versions themselves, possibly because it had running problems.

Next, the tooling passed to Dapol in 1985 and they did put it to good use, probably producing six versions of it as well as selling some of the unsold Airfix stock they had also acquired. In 1996, Dapol sold the tools for the Class 14xx to Hornby but not before they had built up a stock of parts to allow them to keep their models on the market for several more years.