Rapido Trains UK has announced its newest products coming soon to the world of model railways.

Following on from their summer announcement made in August, the Autumn 2025 announcement consists of Iron Minks, Not-Quite Minks, and OO gauge 4 Plank open wagons.

Built to diagram O21, the GWR Four Plank wagons were some of the most numerous wagons built for the GWR, and they could be found right across its vast network.

Over 18,700 were built by 1927, when the wagons had to be made compliant with the ‘Either Side’ brake regulations introduced by the Board of Trade.

Tens of thousands of this type of wagon were built, though despite their useful ability, they largely carried out their duties unnoticed, making it hard to trace when the last one vanished from the national rail network.

Only one example is known to have survived into preservation and is owned as part of the GWR 813 Fund.

The OO wagons will feature new tooling for the grease axle box covers and will be available in several pre-grouping GWR liveries, of which there were many styles. There are also add-on sheet rails, which can be added to the wagons in the raised or closed positions.

The four-wheel Iron Mink Wagons were originally derived from a shortage of timber to build wooden-bodied vans on the GWR, which forced them to build vans using metal.

Various designs of vans were made before a standard size frame of 16ft 6in was found to be adequate with an 8-ton capacity, similar to that of the open 4 plank wagon.

Built under diagram V6, over 4,000 Iron Mink wagons were made before 1901, and they had very long careers, with a good number surviving into the dawn of the BR era in 1948.

They were not just confined to the West and South West, under BR ownership, the vans ran across the country and could be found in yards and sidings across each of BR’s six regions, with some vans documented in train formations at Inverness.

The Mink design was so versatile that other Big Four companies made their own versions, dubbed Not-Quite Minks. During both World Wars, the wagons were ideal for transporting gunpowder and munitions.

The model of the Minks and Not-Quite Minks will be available in a vast array of liveries and colours, including two in a special G.Fawkes livery with different wagon numbers, referring to the 5th of November gunpowder plot of 1605.

These models also feature new grease axel box tooling, while some models will feature GPV door variants. The couplings are also of the NEM pocket type.

A full list of liveries and models available can be found and pre-ordered via the Rapido Trains UK website.