Rapido Trains unveils OO‑gauge GWR 45xx Small Prairie and Crimson Lake coaches

Rapido Trains UK has unveiled an all-new OO-gauge tooling project for the Great Western Railway Class 45xx "Small Prairie" 2-6-2T and a fresh run of Evolution Bogie Coaches in the GWR lined crimson lake colour scheme. Retail listings tied to the announcement display prices of DCC Ready: £147 and DCC Sound: £242.20 and include the marketing line "Pre-order yours today!"

The locomotive range is listed to cover 45xx, 4575 and, in one account, the earlier 44xx variants. Rapido product text excerpts and retailer copy also state that the 45xx tooling improves on Rapido’s 44xx design; one retailer headline calls this "an all‑new model of the GWR Class 45xx 'Small Prairie' 2-6-2T, following on from Rapido's recently released 44xx Class," while other Rapido-sourced text says the 44xx will be offered "for the first time in Rapido’s OO line." That inconsistency remains in the available material.

Tooling and electronics details are specific. Retail and product excerpts promise "numerous accurate tooling differences, such as the inclusion of original length running boards for certain locos which is a first for OO RTR!" The 45xx listings include NEXT-18 digital capability and a Next18 decoder socket, factory-installed speaker, sound options, a MoPower stay‑alive capacitor on the 45xx, smooth-running mechanism, NEM coupler pockets, sprung buffers, and a flickering firebox effect described as a "firebox flicker with a dynamic fire draw effect."

The coaches are explicitly announced as Rapido Evolution Bogie Coaches finished in GWR lined crimson lake. Retail copy frames the coaches as the matching rolling stock for the new tank engines and uses the phrase "complete in this exquisite GWR lined crimson lake colour scheme." A fragment in the original Rapido material reads "48‑fo" but is truncated; available notes do not expand this fragment and it must not be inferred.

The announcement ties back to well-documented GWR history. Chief Mechanical Engineer George Churchward produced a larger-wheeled 4ft 7½in prototype at Wolverhampton Works in 1906, initially numbered 2161. Nineteen further Wolverhampton-built examples preceded construction at Swindon; in 1912 locomotives 2161 to 2190 were renumbered 4500 to 4529 as the 45xx class. Swindon-built batches from 1913 to 1915 and a Collett 1924 batch brought superheating, larger bunkers and other changes; World-of-railways and Kernowmodelrailcentre excerpts note bunker enlargements increased coal capacity to "3 tons 14 hundredweight" and that the class lingered into British Railways years with final withdrawals completed by 1964.

Two items remain unresolved in the published material: whether Rapido previously released a 44xx OO model or is offering it for the first time in this campaign, and the meaning of the truncated "48‑fo" fragment in Rapido's copy. Rapido product pages and an official press release should clarify which specific loco numbers receive original-length running boards, confirm full coach details, and set delivery timelines. For now, the announced feature set - Next18, MoPower stay‑alive, factory speaker and firebox flicker - marks a significant specification step for Rapido's OO GWR offerings and positions these models as strong candidates for GWR-era mixed-traffic and suburban layouts from the Churchward era through withdrawal in 1964.