The Revolution pre-order book will be closing at midnight on June 30th for our N gauge Class A fuel tankers and MTV/ZKV Zander box wagons.
The Class A tankers were designed and built, like the Class B’s previously offered by Revolution, in the late 1950s. They were designed jointly by Charles Roberts wagon builders and Esso, and being fully power-braked they revolutionised the transport of benzene and heavy fuel products.
The Class A tankers were introduced in a livery of silver tanks and red solebars. Later, the tanks were painted grey, while the Class B tankers, designed for less flammable heavy fuel oil, were painted all over black. Because class A fuels were lighter, the tanks were slightly longer, as can be seen from the models, however the chassis remained the same.
The trains often ran in mixed rakes, operating primarily from Esso’s huge refineries to much smaller terminals.
In later years the Esso tankers had the branding placards removed, and some were used by Staveley chemicals. These versions are available to pre-order too.
In addition we are offering two variants of the Class A tanks used for water in the well-known Chipmans weedkiller trains.
In the mid 1970s, having been replaced on fuel trains by higher capacity monobloc wagons, many Class A and Class B tankers were converted to box wagons. The tanks and discharge gear was removed, and a simple box body fitted. These were initially coded MTV and used primarily for stone and sand.
In later years many found their way into the engineers fleet, being recoded ZKV and given the fishkind name ‘Zander.’ Initially given a yellow box rim, many went on to receive CE Dutch livery and some lasted though until the introduction of the shadow railfreight companies and the end of vacuum braked stock.
As with many Revolution models, the Class A tankers and MTV/ZKV wagons are available in singles and triple packs with different livery variations and running numbers. See order page for details.
We anticipate these models will be available from our usual retailers after production, however the price will be higher to include their margin.
We are also re-running our very popular Class B tankers in a variety of liveries, including Esso, Regent and unbranded, and with new running numbers, however these will only be available from retailers. If you want to reserve yours we recommend you contact your preferred Revolution stockist to let them know.
Delivery schedules are hard to predict at the moment, due to the lingering impact of the pandemic, however we anticipate these models will be shipped in Q3-4 2022. We will update the project page if this changes.