Model locomotive

Scale model of the Great Western Railway broad gauge locomotive 'Lord of the Isles' painted in the GWR green and chestnut brown livery. The locomotive was displayed at the Great Exhibition where it won a gold medal and showcased the latest engine in the GWR fleet that had been built at Swindon by Sir Daniel Gooch the same year. Based at Paddington station the engine played a key role in the Paddington to Birmingham service. Writing in 1924 Alfred Rosling Bennett recalled in his book 'London and Londoners in the 1850s and 60s' an encounter with the great engine at Paddington: 'Scarcely had I got there when some broad-gauge carriages began to defile before my gaze, pushed from behind by an invisible engine still under the adjacent station roof. They passed slowly, up to eight or nine in number, and then came a low tender followed by the biggest locomotive I had ever seen, carrying on its arched frame, beneath the 8-feet driving wheel splasher in large brass letters, the name Lord of the Isles. I had read of this machine - how it had taken a gold medal at the 1851 Exhibition and how it was often employed in running the Queen between Slough and Paddington'.