Robert Riddles was tasked to produce new standard locomotive designs for the fledgling British Railways, totalling 12 new classes. The BR 5MT was based on the very successful LMS ‘Class 5’ mixed traffic design, the ‘Black Five’ introduced in 1934. However the BR 5MT had the advantage of nearly 20 years progress in steam locomotive development. Consequently the general layout for crew comfort, ease of disposal and shed maintenance were all much improved.

No fewer than 172 BR 5MT were built for use throughout the UK of which 30 were constructed with cam operated rotary Poppet valves driven by Caprotti valve gear. The only other significant difference between the locomotives was the variation in tenders chosen to suit local operating requirements. Some were painted BR green and 20 on the Southern Region carried names. The BR 5MT was a true Mixed Traffic design being equally at home on an express passenger services as well as local passenger trains and fast freight operations.

The Aster-Accucraft BR 9F is to be followed up by a short re-run of the BR Standard class 5MT. This new version will now feature a high-sided BR 1C tender and will be available in both lined black and lined green liveries. Ready to Run models will represent preserved No. 73096 in lined green and the Bluebell Railway’s No. 73082 Camelot in lined black. Aster Hobby Co only made 170 units back in 2010 allowing for a further run; with the high-sided tender the model is perfect for representing the British Railways Southern Region ‘Arthurs’ which acquired the names of scrapped Southern Railway N15 ‘King Arthurs’ (the Southern Region examples required high capacity tenders because of the lack of water troughs in the region).