5 inch gauge LNER B12 4-6-0

Castings, laser profiled frames for locomotive and tender and a CE-marked boiler by John Ellis for a 5 inch gauge LNER B12 to Martin Evans' "Eastern Belle" design, serialised in "Model Engineer" magazine from 1995.

Designed originally by James Holden for the Great Eastern Railway, built as the 1500 class, they were reclassified and - latterly - rebuilt as B12s by the LNER.

These have come to us as part of a large collection of castings from a well known designer in the model engineering field. They include prototypically correct driving, coupled and tender wheels - with spokes swept out on the former, in on the latter - cast from his own patterns.

Rarely modelled, we've only had a couple of these in over the last twenty years, including this one back in 2005..

We're not sure why that is - it's a handsome machine, of elegant proportions, closely related to the same designer's "Claud Hamilton" 4-4-0, a popular model in this gauge.