00 Kettles!

Hornby Trains have made a big announcement today. After fevered speculation regarding whether or not they were going to buy up the tools from the now-defunct Lima, it turned out to be nothing so mundane. What they're going to do is this.

The locomotive is powered by a mini immersion heater located in the tender and is heated by a safe low voltage current passed along the track by the remote regulator. This low voltage boils the water which in turns creates the steam pressure.

Being simple to operate, after a small amount of practice, the driver can obtain approximately 25 � 30 minutes of running before the locomotive needs topping up with water. The engine also produces realistic steam sounds from pumping pistons to the engine whistle, coupled with the unmistakable nostalgic smells of steam and hot engine oil.

Hornby Marketing Manager Simon Kohler said: "The Hornby Live Steam locomotive is a superb achievement. What was once supposedly an impossible dream is now a living reality and opens up all sorts of possibilities for the development of model railways. The future is steam, the future is Hornby!"

What next? A working internal combution class 50?