978017 Rapido Trains UK GCR ‘Evolution’ Non-Corridor Carriage Pack

978017 Rapido Trains UK GCR ‘Evolution’ Non-Corridor Carriage Pack

Rapido Trains UK is evolving pre-grouping passenger stock in an exciting new way! We are proud to announce that we will be adding a diverse collection of pre-grouping carriages to our OO Gauge range, with the new 48ft Evolution bogie coaches.

With numerous locos and a boatload of era-appropriate wagons under our belt, the pre-grouping era has become a quintessentially ‘Rapido’ thing, so we thought it was about time we produced some more suitable coaches.

Although some have already been seen in ready-to-run versions, it seemed unlikely that all of the well-known pre-1923 companies would receive a wide selection of accurate bogie coaching prototypes in OO gauge.

We thought we would fill this void with a selection of generic 48ft bogie coaches, each detailed with an array of key features that modellers associate with their railway of choice. We have dubbed this exciting new coach project ‘Evolution’. So what tooling does this entail?

Composite (Four 1st Class and three 3rd Class compartments)

Third (Eight 3rd Class compartments)

Brake Third (Five 3rd Class compartments plus Luggage and Guards compartments)

First (Seven 1st Class compartments)

Full Brake (Central Guards compartment with luggage areas)

The coach roofs were one of the most notable features of the era, so we have included elliptical, arc and clerestory designs in the tooling and made the roofs easily removable so that you can fit figures into your coaches. Each roof style will also include fittings for either gas or electric lighting.

We have added some rather nice interior detailing too, including luggage racks, picture frames on compartment dividers and a fully-detailed Guard’s Van/Luggage Compartment. There are also a multitude of separately-fitted parts to bring the coaches to life, including door and grab handles and passenger emergency alarm ‘butterflies’ on one end.

All Evolution coaches will include fitted internal working lighting controlled by our magnetic magic wand, making it much easier to see these lovely details.

To complete the appearance of different gas and electric lighting fittings, the relevant models will feature separately-fitted parts for battery and regulator boxes, a dynamo, roof-mounted gas lamps, plumbing and gas tanks on the underframes.

Battery boxes and gas tanks aren’t the only external details below the frame. Each Evolution coach will feature Fox-pattern bogies fitted with electrical pickups. Some versions will feature extra footboards on the bogies and there are also additional central lower footboards on some designs too.

Finally, each vehicle is fitted with NEM pockets mounted on kinematic mechanisms and has optional close-coupling bars (modelled to resemble vacuum pipes) included.

These coaches will be available in three-car multipacks, featuring one of each body version. Alongside the multipacks, single coaches will also be offered to modellers who wish to extend their rakes. These single vehicles will each have an alternate running number to their multipack counterparts.

• ‘Evolution’ 48′ non-corridor bogie coaches
• Great Central Railway Livery
• Three coach pack includes:
• Brake third No.1876
• Third No.2305
• Composite No.1366
• Tooling and Detail features:
• Clerestory roofs
• Electric lighting
• Footboards on guard’s bogie only
• Fox pattern bogies
• Full internal and external detail
• Working lighting
• NEM coupling pockets with kinematic coupling mechanism
• Optional ‘vacuum pipe’ close coupling bar