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A Pennsylvania Railroad T1 4-4-4-4 duplex locomotive - a design developed in the 1930s resulting in 50 locomotives being ordered in February 1945, built by both the Pennsylvania Railroad locomotive shops and Baldwin. A highly original, striking looking design, it proved fast and powerful, regularly running at over 100mph, on occasion with trains in excess of 1000 tons.

A rigid - rather than articulated - design, comprising two 4-4-0 engine units, each with its own set of cylinders, the advantage over a 4-8-4 being reduced hammer blow to the track and smoother running at high speeds.

As was common American locomotive practice at that time, the chassis and cylinders were in the form of a single, massive 60 foot long steel casting. The locomotive and tender combined were just under 123 feet long, weighing around 420 tons and with a tractive effort nearly three times that of an LMS Duchess - the boiler, pressed to 300psi, was fabricated from inch thick nickel steel.

An impressive machine by any metric, but combined with fabulous styling by Raymond Loewy, a truly iconic piece of industrial design.

This gauge 1 model by Accucraft captures much of the distinctive look of the prototype, with slip eccentric valve gear in place of the complex poppet valve design of the full-size locomotive. The silver-soldered copper spirit-fired boiler is pressed to 60psi - it's had a recent twice working pressure hydraulic test with new certification issued.

Highly detailed, with working electric headlight and stainless steel motionwork and valve gear, the engine remains in good condition throughout. No longer available new, this locomotive is number 57 of a limited edition batch produced in 2012.

On test - after a brief hiatus while we machined up extensions for our rolling road to accommodate something of this size - the locomotive steamed freely and ran well, the firehole door allowing fine control of top draught to the three-wick spirit burner. Boiler feed is by hand and axle pumps, the four cylinders have manually operated drain cocks.

Inspired in part by the success of "Tornado", in the USA there is a dedicated group of enthusiasts working hard to recreate a 53rd member of this class of locomotives, none of which survived into preservation. A hugely ambitious project, we applaud their vision - their industry - and will follow progress with interest - you can read more about it on their website here.

The model comes complete with custom-built wooden transport cases for locomotive and tender.