The Great Central Atlantic, Jersey Lily, was designed in 5” gauge by Don Young after John G Robinson’s original from 1903. As Don said at the time, the Atlantics were “considered by many to be the most handsome engines to run anywhere.” There is a lot of information on the Atlantics, such as Martin Evans’ book, Atlantic Era, but Don went to source for full details, at that time it was the British Transport Museum in Clapham. There he was given VIP treatment and access to more than 500 tracings.

Don told the story of how this class of locomotives were named Jersey Lilies after the famous and well connected Music Hall artiste, Lily Langtry who hailed from Jersey. There was also a suggestion that the nickname came from a heavyweight lady who frequented a public house by the Gorton Works entrance, and the Atlantics were larger than anything seen hitherto on the GCR.

No GCR Atlantics survived into preservation. Indeed only one if its passenger locos has, No 506 Butler-Henderson, a Director Class 4-4-0 which continued working in steam into the early 1990s.

This fine award-winning model was shown by David J Bailey at the 2015 Midlands Model Engineering Exhibition.