Sold March 2006 Back to Archive

One of the best bits of my job is getting to meet some very interesting people. Two years ago I visited a retired engineer on the South Coast who had spent thirty years in industry, working in the inspection department of an engineering company. His own workshop, as you might expect, was well equipped - what really impressed me, however, was the sheer volume of work he turned out.

I spent a very enjoyable morning there looking at locomotives, traction engines and one of almost everything that Stuart produce in the stationary engine line.

Later in the year I bought a pair of three inch scale Burrells that he had built - one is on the archive the other didn't stay long enough even to have its photograph taken.

This engine is a Burrell Gold Medal tractor, built using the MJ Engineering drawings and castings, in compound, Showmans tractor guise. Certainly the finest Gold Medal I've ever seen, one of the two finest 2 inch scale engines I've ever bought (the other was a Fowler Scenic Showmans that I am going to get back one day, I've made my mind up...).

Built to an exceptional standard throughout, it was completely assembled, steamed and had a boiler certificate issued. It was then stripped, painted and lined out since when it hasn't been fired again. It took a Silver Medal and the prestigious Aveling-Barford Trophy at the Model Engineer Exhibition.

Copper silver-solder boiler, feed by injector and mechanical pump with bypass. Compound cylinder block with simpling valve, slide valves actuated by Stephenson's valve gear with pole reverser on footplace. Two speed transmission, road wheels rubber-tyred over strakes as prototype. Working replica Mather & Platt dynamo, the canopy lights can also be illuminated for display with a purpose built transformer.

The engine is mounted on a purpose built carrying stand, with detachable handles and a fitted cloth cover.

Not a lot of point in rabbiting on about this one, the pictures say it all and will repay close study, to see how a master model builder sets about the job.