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Matchbox Models of Yesteryear Y-14 1903 'Duke of Connaught' Locomotive

The 1903 Duke of Connaught Locomotive joined the range in 1959, It had a dark green cab and boiler and a dark brown chassis and smokebox, The smokebox door was usually gold plated but on the final run it was silver plated. The wheels can be painted brown or be left in bare metal. The early versions had the wheels mounted on a seperate axle but later the wheels and axles were made as a single casting. Early versions had gold trim to the walkway boxes and the chimney top, safety valve and condenser on the top of the boiler as well as to the axle boxes on the sides, The walkway box trim was soon deleted and later the axle boxes and safety valve trim was also deleted.
Red and yellow "Duke of Connaught" decals were applied to the wheelboxes, There was just one casting modification to the body and this was to the sandbox on the left hand side, This was extended to fill in the gap between the sandbox and the wheelbox. The baseplate can also be found with a hole through the 'Ma' of Made in England which was for a screw to attach it to an ashtray when used in the giftware range, a few of the giftware bases made it into regular production.
Like the Y13 General Locomotive it should really have had a tender to make it complete and like the Y13 it too has a small hole through the cab floor which was probably to attach the tender to but so for some unfathomable reason it looks like both Locos lost their tenders somewhere along the way which is a great shame. The Duke of Connaught was deleted in 1964.


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The ones to look for, The first run with gold trim to the walkway boxes, The version that used the giftware baseplate and the one with silver smokebox door are all hard to find.

Above. The gap between the sandbox and the wheelbox that was later filled in. On examining the sandbox & wheelbox on the other side it appears that one was also filled in as an afterthought so maybe they were both supposed to have been filled before it went into production.