Latest new toys for the train set are some newly-released “Falcon” ballast wagons from Dapol. They’re excellent well-detailed models of what has now become a very common sight on the full-sized railway, and at a price that makes them very good value for money.
Engineering trains used to be the poor relation of revenue-earning freight,and were seldom modelled. Such trains were often made up from superannuated repurposed revenue-earning wagons running behind the oldest and most clapped-out locomotives in the fleet.
With the massive investment in an increasingly passenger-focussed railway, all that has changed. Engineering trains represent a major part of the privatised freight companies’ businesses, and a more typical train today is made up of modern purpose-built wagons behind the newest and most reliable locomotives.
Here’s a short train of the full-sized versions at Dawlish back in 2004
