HATTON’S MODEL Railways is working on a series of four and six-wheel carriages for ‘OO’ gauge. The first batch is expected to be available in the first quarter of 2021 with prices starting at £30 per coach.
The new range of carriages covers six designs - three with four wheels and three with six wheels. The models are a four-wheel five-compartment coach, a fourwheel four-compartment coach, a four-wheel brake, a six-wheel fivecompartment coach, a six-wheel four-compartment coach with lavatory and a six-wheel brake. Within the tooling, Hatton’s will be offering Maunsell, three-hole and disc wheelsets and either gas or electric light roof fittings.
The specification includes optional lower footboards, brake rigging, painted interiors, an optional semi-permanent coupling bar to model a coupling chain, removable centre wheelset on the six-wheel coaches, unique running numbers between single coaches and packs, NEM coupling pockets and design to suit operation on a minimum of second radius curves.
Unlit and lit coaches will be available. The latter will cost £36 and will have a roofmounted lighting bar which can be operated on analogue or digital layouts. For analogue, the lights will come on with track power while on digital the lights will be illuminated permanently. Hatton’s is also designing a Next18 decoder socket into each coach to allow for the optional installation of a decoder to allow the lights to be turned on/off as required on DCC.
Prices are set at £30 for a single unlit coach and £36 for a single coach with lights. Packs are priced at £85 for a three-coach unlit set and £110 for a four-coach unlit set. Packs with lights will cost £99 for a three-coach set and £135 for a four-coach set.
The first round of releases will model GWR chocolate and cream, GNR teak, LNWR plum and split milk, SECR crimson lake, LMS crimson, LNER pre-war brown and SR Maunsell olive green. There will also be a pair of British Railways liveried six-wheel brakes for use as a staff mess van or tool van with a crane. These are due for release in 2021.
As well as announcing the first batch of liveries, Hatton’s has also revealed its plans for the second batch which will model GCR, GER, L&Y, MR , LSWR, BR and NCB colour schemes while a third batch is likely to include North Eastern, Caledonian, Metropolitan, Somerset and Dorset and Longmoor Military railway carriages as well as further BR departmental vehicles.
• For more information and to see the full range visit www.hattons.co.uk.
