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Having designed and built a pair of Fowler BB1 ploughing engines, Colin Tyler and John Haining next worked together on an interesting design from the earliest days of steam ploughing. The Kitson and Hewitson slant shaft engine was a design built for Fowler at the Airedale Foundry in Leeds between 1860 and 1862, the business relationship based on the friendship of John Fowler and William Hewitt.

The general layout of the engine betrays its portable engine ancestry, with a pair of double high cylinders mounted at the firebox end and slef-propulsion - by chain in the earliest engines - was effected by means of the eponymous "slanting shaft" with bevel gears.

This model was the second of three ploughing engines built by Colin Tyler - the others a Fowler K1 and BB1 - and took a Silver Medal at the Model Engineering Exhibition. The engine featured in the construction series published in "Model Engineer" magazine between 1969 and 1970. It has many interesting technical and historical features, not least the clip-drum pattern cable winding mechanism - comprising some 600 parts, it's perhaps unsurprising that the designers offered other model engineers the option of a simple cable drum if desired!

The engine has recently come to us as part of a large collection which includes Colin Tyler's three ploughing engines, associated implements including plough, cultivator and mole drainer and his magnificent Darby-Savage broadside digger. Boiler is copper, silver soldered throughout, built by Alec Farmer of A.J.Reeves. We suspect the model has spent much of its life on display - it runs well on air, however in deference to its age and historical significance we have not steamed the engine.