Rapido Class 25 ‘Ironclad’ 0‑6‑0 No 52053 is an OO‑gauge model of a Lancashire & Yorkshire Railway steam locomotive in the British Railways Early Crest livery. It is supplied by Rapido Trains UK under part number 817009 and is intended to represent the locomotive as it appeared in the early British Railways era.
The model is designed for use on 2nd‑radius curves of 438 mm or larger and includes a number of detailed components: an L&Y‑style smokebox door, a one‑piece boiler handrail, Ramsbottom safety valves, a core‑less motor with flywheel, a 21‑pin decoder socket in the tender, a large tender‑mounted speaker, MoPower stay‑alive, plunger locomotive pickups, tender wheel‑bearing pickups, dynamic firebox flicker, and NEM pockets on both front and rear.
The real Class 25 locomotives were introduced after William Barton Wright became Locomotive Superintendent of the Lancashire & Yorkshire Railway on 20 March 1875. An initial order was placed with Kitson & Co. for 0‑6‑0 tender engines based on a design previously built for the Taff Vale Railway. Kitson delivered 22 examples between the summer of 1876 and early 1878, and a further 18 were ordered from Sharp, Stewart & Co. in 1877 before the Kitson batch had been completed. Production continued at the L&Y works at Miles Platting and later from other manufacturers, reaching a total of 280 locomotives by 1887. Although designed for freight, the class performed mixed‑traffic duties and acquired the nickname ‘Ironclad’. They entered LMS service as power class 2F, with withdrawals beginning in 1930 and the last member, No 52044, withdrawn on 5 September 1959. One engine, No 957 (later No 52053), was saved from scrap in 1960 and now resides on the Keighley & Worth Valley Railway, where it appeared in the film *The Railway Children*.
Rapido offers the Class 25 model in several liveries, including those representing its original service and later preservation periods, allowing modelers to portray the locomotive in a variety of historical contexts.
