This month, we're excited to reveal a whole host of FESTIVE SURPRISES - including a variety of NEW & RETURNING EXCLUSIVES! Stay tuned to our website for more information.

Today, we're pleased to reveal a pair of NEW & EXCLUSIVE Class 66s in the new GBRf Railway200 red colour scheme - releasing as part of our Railway Icons range, in partnership with Locomotion Models! 

We've teamed up once again with our friends at Revolution Trains to bring modellers these welcome additions to our  N Gauge range. The special livery depicted on  No.66710 "Karen Harrison"  and No.66719 "Michael Portillo" makes them the perfect way to round out a year of railway celebrations. Both Class 66’s were originally seen in their new liveries hauling Network Rail’s 2025 Exhibition Train ‘Inspiration’ and sport a red body and grey roof livery, complete with GBRf  and Railway 200 branding.

The price for the DCC Ready models will be £159.99, with the DCC Sound Fitted models coming in at £254.95. These models are exclusive to the Railway Icons range, and your pre-order can be secured from as little as £30 at Rails of Sheffield or Locomotion Models. Delivery is expected during late 2026.

Revolution Trains’ highly detailed and critically acclaimed model of the Class 66 returns, with two exclusive versions commemorating the two GB Railfreight Class 66 locomotives designated the official “Railway 200” locomotives in mid-2025. Both 66710 and 66719 now carry a distinct red livery, with both the Railway 200 branding and all four of the 1923 ‘Big Four’ Railway companies.

Both locomotives were named at the “Greatest Gathering” event at Derby, with 66710 christened “Karen Harisson” after the UK’s first female train driver, and 66719 named “Michael Portillo” to honour the former MP and presenter of many UK railway programmes.

As far as locomotives go, the introduction of the Class 66 was the biggest revolution for the UK’s rail freight operations in the modern era, being born out of the Privatisation of British Rail which began in 1994. In readiness for the sale, the British Railways Board split its freight business into six companies and the Wisconsin Central Transportation Corporation emerged as the successful bidder for all but one, establishing English, Welsh & Scottish Railways (EWS) to run the operation. The sale was officially presented to the public in February 1996 and by May of the same year, EWS had ordered 250 new locomotives from General Motors’s Electro-Motive Division (EMD), to be constructed at its works in London, Ontario, Canada.

Having built the Class 59s over the previous decade, General Motors was in prime position to provide locomotives that could meet the required costs, performance and speed of delivery stipulated by EWS. In the Class 59 they had a design that was fully certified in the UK, and so to create the Class 66, the 59’s underframe and cab end design was re-used, with new equipment in between, incorporating new power units and the latest, state-of-the-art technology.

The first locomotive arrived in the UK in April 1998 and soon after, Freightliner, which obtained the sixth freight company from the British Railways Board, began placing orders for its own Class 66s. As further operators became established, they too were quick to acquire their own locomotives, and both GB Railfreight and DRS placed multiple orders during the build programme which had spanned almost two decades by the time the last Class 66 rolled off the production line in December 2015 – by which point EMD had been sold twice over, its name had changed to Electro-Motive Diesel, and production had moved to a new plant in Muncie, Indiana, USA.

A significant development in the Class 66 story came in the early-2000s when new emissions standards dictated a radical re-design, and locomotives completed from 2004 onwards were of the ‘low-emission’ variety. A revised power unit was fitted along with a larger radiator/cooler assembly, all of which required much more space than the original design afforded. The solution saw the new equipment intrude into the cab-to-cab walkway, necessitating an additional bodyside door to provide alternative access to the engine compartment, resulting in the two main Class 66 body types we know today – four-door and five-door locomotives. The additional weight that came with this new equipment meant that savings had to be made elsewhere, notably by reducing the size of the fuel tank, so that the locomotives remained within the required weight limits for route availability 7.

The implementation of evermore stringent emissions regulations heralded the end of Class 66 production and the last locomotive, No. 66779, arrived in the UK in February 2016 and was named ‘Evening Star’, the same name given to the last steam locomotive built by British Railways. By this time, 480 Class 66s had been built for UK operators and the type had also attracted orders from mainland Europe. Some of the European locomotives were ordered directly from EMD, others were purchase from UK operators after traffic reductions left them with surpluses. On the contrary, since 2016 GB Railfreight has expanded its fleet further by purchasing additional Class 66s ‘second-hand’, both from operators in the UK and on the continent, to meet its growing traction requirements.

Commonly referred to as ‘Sheds’ due to their appearance, today the Class 66 is the mainstay of British rail freight, so much so that by 2020 the type was providing the traction for 87% of daily freight services. There is no doubt that the Class 66 will continue to be a major part of the UK rail landscape for many, many years to come.