Is it just another ‘Pannier’ or something totally different? MIKE WILD runs the rule over Bachmann’s ‘OO’ gauge model of the GWR ‘64XX’ 0-6-0PT.
AS WITH THE 4-6-0 wheel arrangement, copper capped chimneys and brass safety valve bonnets, the ‘Pannier’ tank is one of the best known elements of the Great Western Railway’s locomotive design styles.
Hundreds were built for freight and shunting work, but perhaps less known are the smaller classes such as the ‘64XX’ which were actually developed for passenger work first and foremost.
Bachmann added this ‘OO’ gauge locomotive to its range in 2015 modelling the Collett ‘64XX’. The class of 40 locomotives were built at Swindon Works from 1932. They featured autotrain working equipment allowing them to operate in push-pull formation with the GWR’s famous auto-coaches and lasted in service into the early 1960s. Reality Check reveals the full story behind these purposeful locomotives.
Far from being a rehash of Bachmann’s previous models of the ‘57XX’ and ‘8750’ 0-6-0PTs, the ‘64XX’ has been tooled from scratch not least because the only real similarity between the ‘57XX’ and ‘64XX’ was the overall shape of the design – in most major dimensions they were different.
Our sample is 6417 – built…
