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Hornby R3635 OO BR Lord Nelson Class 4-6-0 30863 Lord Rodney Era 4

Product Code: HOR-R3635
Barcode: 5055286648526
$379.99
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In order to cope with the steadily increasing weight of express passenger traffic on the Southern Railway in the early years of Grouping, Richard Maunsell, the Chief Mechanical Officer, needed a locomotive that was more powerful than the King Arthur class, but one that would still conform to the various gauging and weight issues within the region and still be capable of hauling 500 ton trains at a speed of 55mph.The new Lord Nelson design had to fit within the profile of the King Arthur class and having previously used a Drummond four cylinder locomotive as a test bed, Maunsell altered the positions of the cranks on the Lord Nelson design to give eight exhaust pulses per revolution, rather than four.

Although areas for improvement were noted, there was enough confidence in the locomotives design for a further fifteen engines to be ordered; ten on March 13, 1927 and a further five on March 23, 1928. These locomotives were completed at Eastleigh between June 1928 and November 1929 and once the decision was taken to name the class after naval leaders, the Southern Railways publicity department went to work promoting the introduction, basing their claim of the class being the most powerful express locomotive in Britain on the theoretical tractive power of 33,300lbf.

Both Maunsell and his successor, Oliver Bulleid, bought a number of modifications to the class, the most noticeable being the introduction of smoke deflectors, but chimneys, bogie frames and cylinders were all modified, giving a subtle range of external differences over the pre-war appearance of the class. Post-war, speed recorders and AWS apparatus were added by British Railways, but it was the range of tenders that added interest. For most of their service life, the class ran with flat-sided 5000 gallon bogie tenders, but modified Urie style 5000 gallon bogie tenders from the S15 class were also used, along with 4000 gallon six-wheel tenders.