Fifteen years ago Rapido Trains UK General Manager Andy passed his steam loco driving test on 'Matthew Murray' an 'L' Class saddle tank built by Manning, Wardle in 1903 and residing on the Middleton Railway - a stone’s throw from its birthplace. The railway is also home to a sister L class 'Sir Berkeley'. This type has never been produced in OO gauge in any form so it’s no surprise that we opted to produce this model.
The L class were dainty and attractive little locomotives with double-bossed wheels and a variety of bolt-on options the purchaser could add. The resulting engines were unmistakably Manning, Wardles.
As at August 2023 the model is in the final design stages and will feature a number of tooling variants to allow for open and closed cabs, different pipework layouts, different frame styles and different wheels among others.
The full specification and planned list of liveries will be released once the design work has been finalised however we expect MW1601 Matthew Murray at least will be featured among the 'cabbed' versions.