Scale 1:48. A contemporary full hull model of the TSS ‘Rawalpindi’ (1925), a passenger cargo ship. Built in ‘bread and butter’ fashion in the builder’s style, the high-quality model is decked and fully equipped, rigged and complete with its original ornately carved mahogany display case.

Designed and built by Harland & Wolff Ltd., Belfast, ‘Rawalpindi’ measured 547 feet in length by 71 feet in the beam and had a tonnage of 16,688 gross. It was powered by two sets of quadruple expansion reciprocating steam engines capable of a top speed of 14 knots.

Employed on the Indian and later the Far Eastern service, ‘Rawalpindi’ was requisitioned at Tilbury in 1939 by the Royal Navy and converted to an armed merchant cruiser and fitted with eight 6-inch guns. On 23 November it encountered the German battleships ‘Scharnhorst’ and ‘Gneisenau’ off Iceland and attempted to hold them off as the rest of the convoy scattered. With such enormous odds against it, the vessel was hit continuously and soon ablaze fore and aft, eventually sinking with the loss of 265 of the crew including the captain, E. C. Kennedy.