Sold January 2024 Back to Archive

A well-advanced 3 inch scale Case 45hp traction engine. Don't let the scale fool you - it's a great big thing weighing in at just under a quarter of a ton already and still needing the rear coal bunkers and footplate making to complete it, when we estimate it will be something over five feet long.

The engine has come to us, along with his workshop machinery, from the family of the late builder. Built to a good standard, we'd put it at better than 90% complete - motionwork and valve gear are fitted, the engine turns over freely.

Not unusually in such circumstances, no trace of the boiler paperwork can be found, however the builder's daughter remembers him ordering it from Bell Boilers and taking delivery many years ago - it's stamped up with "BB 79" in the usual place above the firehole door, along with the Lloyds inspector's stamp.

Grubby, with a generous coating of light surface rust from storage, the engine will need stripping to clean and paint before reassembly.

A rare sight on UK rally fields - we've only ever had one Case before, that one in 4 inch scale (which also had a Bell Boiler). There are pictures and some rather elderly, low resolution video of that engine in the archive if you want to see what the engine will look like when complete.