7 1/4 inch gauge Metropolitan Bo-Bo "Michael Faraday No.18"

A finely built Metropolitan Railway Bo-Bo "Michael Faraday", No.18. The original locomotives were built by Vickers in the early 1920s - whilst originally planned as a rebuild of an earlier class built in 1907, few original parts were kept; the Vickers locomotives were, to all intents and purposes, a new design.

Remarkably, for such a gloriously Edwardian-looking device, they remained in service until the 1960s - "Michael Faraday" finally being withdrawn in 1962 before being scrapped four years later.

A highly detailed design, with scratch built bogies and chassis based on the builder's own research, with an ingenious electro-mechanical control system, including a connector allowing charging of the batteries without the need to remove the body.

Exhibited at MEX Brooklands in 2014, it was awarded a Very Highly Commended certificate and was subsequently the subject of a two-part writeup in "Model Engineer" magazine.

To my eyes one of the nicest looking battery-electric locomotives we've ever bought (possibly because it's the same era as my Sunbeam tourer, sharing similarly elegant yet purposeful lines!)