Hornby LNER Class D49
Known both as the 'Shire' Class and the 'Hunt' Class, some were named after English and Scottish counties and others after famous hunts, depending on their subclass. They were built at Darlington to one of the last of Gresley's group standard designs and introduced to the LNER in 1927 for express passenger and mixed traffic duties. They were built in batches between 1927 and 1935 with variations creeping in during that period, which affected, amongst other things, the type of valve gear fitted, the size of cylinders and the overall weight.
The Hornby model arrived in 'The Year of the Locomotive' (1981) when the company demonstrated that they had the resources to outdo the competition coming from Airfix, Mainline and Lima and launched 8 new locomotives in one year - a never to be repeated feat. The D49 was one of four 4-4-0 tender locomotives introduced for the first time that year. It remained in production until 1998 during which time three 'Shires' and three 'Hunts' had been released. These all had tender drive but the model reintroduced in 2011 as part of the RailRoad range has been modified to have loco drive and be 'DCC ready'. The loco and tender now come joined as one, with a permanent DCC connection to the decoder socket in the tender. Unfortunately, the current model has assumed the identity of one of the earlier versions, namely No.222 The Berkeley in LNER green.