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This kit, which portrays Sir Nigel Gresley's famous V2 2-6-2 mixed-traffic locomotives, is to my usual uncompromising standard.

Features of the kit include:

Compensated chassis (which can be built rigid).

Highly detailed etchings for the motion with all prototype forked-joints modelled and working conjugated valve gear which can be reversed.

A fold-up valence assembly which ensures an accurate and easy-to-build footplate.

All smokebox/boiler/firebox sections are built around formers which jig each section together.

60 lost-wax castings in nickel-silver and brass together with 25 whitemetal castings.

By careful design, including the use of jigs, the more difficult items such as the valve gear, brake gear, footplate, cab roof and boiler/firebox,
have been made as straightforward to build as possible.

There are also several optional parts within the kit including:

Original swing-link pony truck and the later helical spring pony truck.

Original monoblock cylinders and later separate cylinders with outside steam pipes.

Single or double chimney.

Close-up photo showing the motion on the V2 kit.

The cylinders motion bracket is a separate assembly. This makes for ease of building and can be removed for painting.

The working conjugated valve gear with the centre valve rod can be seen.

Couplings and connecting rods are laminated to give correct thickness as are the slide bars. Apart from being more aesthetically pleasing than with 'flimsy' single-thickness parts, the wider bearing surfaces also means that any wear will be greatly reduced.

The reversible valve gear and coupling rods feature prototypical forked joints. Again this is not only visually correct but the forked joins enable the rods stay correctly aligned as per the real thing. Un-prototypical 'lapped' joints held together with screws not only look wrong but the resulting assembly will 'flop' about unrealistically. The useful lifetime of such an arrangement will be shorter.

Compare the arrangement on my LNER A3, A4 and V2 kits with other LNER kits on the market and see the difference !

Detailed shot of radial truck.

Radial trucks were used where the pivot of an equivalent radius pony truck would clash with a rear driving axle or ashpan, for example.

Many kit manufacturers would ‘cheat’ by using a smaller radius pony truck on a model instead of the correct radial truck.

In so doing they have obviously fail to realise that they are compromising the design. The wheels will now be at a more acute angle to the frames on curves and overscale model flanges are therefore more likely to clout the frames.

If a radial truck was part of the prototype design then it is obviously unsatisfactory to substitute a pony truck in a model, where curves are usually of a much tighter scale radius.

Produced to run with the V2 locomotive kit is the 4200g Group Standard tender.

This kit will build riveted tenders with either low or high fronts and includes the BR modifications.

It is also appropriate for several other classes including B17, K3 and 02.