932004 WSL Rapido LNER Y7 Steam Loco No.129 Darlington Works

The Y7 started life on the North Eastern Railway and was classified the Class H. Its simplistic design made light work of the bad track work and tight radius curves it called home, and this led to the NER ordering a further 13 of the class. Incredibly, it was such a success that the LNER followed this by building an additional 5. These new locos along with their veteran counterparts were then reclassified as the Y7.

Of the 24 Y7s that were built, 17 of them were eventually sold to industrial concerns, and 2 were received by British Railways (one of which worked local passenger services on the North Sunderland Railway) with the remainder being scrapped. Thankfully two Y7s survived into preservation, and these can be found on the Mid-Suffolk Light Railway and the Middleton Railway.

Throughout their lifetime, many of the Y7s received alterations to better suit their working conditions. With nine livery variations of this charming little 0-4-0T locomotive being produced, we are covering as much of its long service history as possible and representing many of its unique features.

Depending on the variant, you can look forward to vacuum brakes, bell-shaped and organ-pipe whistles, BR number and shed code plates, cab roofs with installed vents, different length frames, alternate smokeboxes and even an improvised wooden cab extension on one version.

In addition to these fitted details, we will include some awesome extra optional parts, such as loco-mounted shunting poles, extra steps and handrails, and dumb buffers.

Other key features include a Next18 decoder socket, factory-fitted speaker, sprung buffers, plunger pickups, coreless motor and flywheel for super-smooth slow running.