Perhaps it’s because we are a South Wales club that Southern stock in ‘OO’ never features on our layouts and almost never runs on our Test Tracks [and even then it’s usually just one member]. The recent stock sale made me think more about this though as one of the items for sale was a near-mint and quite scarce Hornby special commission, ‘Fighter Command’, a Battle of Britain Class Light Pacific, an original ‘Spam Can’. This loco has since run on our Test Tracks and it is the first un-rebuilt Bullied Pacific [Light or otherwise] to do so since we moved here 16 years ago. Given the number made in OO, that is really surprising. Incidentally, these were considered ‘air smoothed’ rather than streamlined and the prototype must have seemed radical and extremely futuristic when introduced in 1945.

In ‘OO’ ready-to-run, these models can be traced back to the early 1950s and Graham Farish first got the ball rolling. The Farish model, shown above, was a bit of a hybrid really, with a diecast metal loco body and a Bakelite tender. The motor was in the tender but drove the loco wheels through a drive shaft. Not exactly conventional and in practice often problematic, Farish’s Black Five used the same mechanism. The photo clearly shows the plunger pickups under the tender wheels. This particular loco is a Merchant Navy Class Pacific, ‘Holland America Line’. The MN’s were heavier than the Light Pacifics but Farish used the same model for the MNs and the lighter Battle of Britain and West Country classes. The Farish models were for two-or three-rail running and appear from time-to-time on internet auction sites, but often missing parts or broken. They are expensive too, considerably so when in good-to-mint working condition.

In late 1961, Triang entered the fray with their all-plastic two-rail Bulleid Pacifics [they had already produced one in their ‘TT’ range - will anyone produce one in the new ranges of ‘TT’ being offered today?]. Utilising the existing Princess chassis and most having smoke generators, only the Battle of Britain Class names featured however and the models were available throughout the 1960s until the early 1970s. As can be seen from the above photo, the models were quite basic by contemporary standards but they were popular and remain widely available on the second-hand market today. Beware however, many models appear with chipped smoke deflectors. Around 33,000 models were produced!

During the 1980s, G&R Wrenn also produced a series of air-smoothed Bulleid Pacifics, utilising the now-normal ‘one size fits all’ approach for the Merchant Navy, Battle of Britain and West Country versions. The loco bodies were diecast and some releases were manufactured in extremely limited numbers, making them even more collectable than the more common versions, not that any are really that common. The rather poor photo above shows their ‘City of Wells’ release. Wrenn air-smoothed Pacifics can be eye-wateringly expensive and mint, boxed examples regularly exceed £500 in auction, with some even far exceeding that figure by another £500. One wonders how many lie forgotten at the bottom of uncles’ wardrobes……

The early Triang tooling resurfaced during the mid-1980s under the new Triang Hornby brand, but was modified to allow for body detail improvements and ‘Spitfire’, above, is is one of those models. The detail improvements are clear and with some 15000 models produced, used examples of this loco are widely available today from the usual sites. In one form or another, these Pacifics continued on until a step-change in detail and accuracy was introduced by Hornby in the early 2000s. Which brings us to ‘Fighter Command’…….

Hornby’s 2001 Bulleid Pacific introduced a completely new model with a wealth of fine moulded detail, separate parts, a diecast chassis with a five-pole motor and it still stands up well, today. The model above, ‘Fighter Command’, was commissioned by a retailer in extremely low numbers from Hornby in 2002 and was released in photographic grey, the livery it actually carried ex-works in April 1948 until its naming in August 1948. The model has etched name and class plates which await fixing. One with plates attached can be seen below. Incidentally, the prototype ‘Fighter Command’ also had the honour of being the 1000th locomotive to be built at the Brighton Works.

Finally, and almost as expensive as the much-earlier Wrenn versions, Hornby produced two new Merchant Navy Pacifics in 2021, ‘Elders Fyffes’ and ‘General Steam Navigation’. These models had diecast metal loco bodies and plastic tenders - a throw back to the days of Graham Farish in the early ‘50s [but only in that respect!] - and were supplied in beautiful, nostalgic boxes with ‘Hornby Dublo’ branding, so reminiscent of their packaging in the 1950s. Only 500 of each of these magnificent models were produced and they are destined to become highly collectible.

And what of the real things themselves? The Merchant Navy Class came first, with 30 built between 1940 and 1949, followed by the BoB and WC Light Pacifics, with 110 built between 1945 and 1951. Incredibly, 31 from within each class have survived in various states of preservation in either un-rebuilt or rebuilt form. As their name suggests, the Light Pacifics were just that, lighter than their Merchant Navy counterparts. Whilst their reduced weight allowed greater route availability, it also led to adhesion problems and the locos were prone to slipping. I’ll close with a remarkable photo of ‘Fighter Command’ giving a masterclass in that, slipping furiously at Shrewsbury in 1963, on an enthusiasts’ special.