Sold November 2014 Back to Archive

A virtually complete new and unsteamed Foden steam wagon, one of three built by the inestimably talented Keith Massey. If you don't know his work, go here so you know what I'm enthusing about - I consider him in a league of his own in terms of the quantity and quality of work completed over a fifty year modelling career.

On the one and only occasion I met the man - I was picking up a fine "Holmside" he'd built - this Foden was about half-finished, the last of three he'd built. I'm told that three months later it had advanced to the stage you see here, whilst work also progressed on a fine 5 inch gauge self-propelled steam crane which remained on his bench after he died in 2011. The crane has recently been finished by Graham Larrington of Bridge of Brown Crafts, one of the few people about who work to the same exacting standards - it's a stunning (not to say exceptionally rare) model.

Quality of machining and fitting is, as usual from this builder, beyond reproach. Paintwork is characteristically quirky, there is no pressure gauge - he made his own, painstakingly moving them from engine to engine as he wanted to run. There is some work to do on the transmission, brakes and boiler, flywheel is still wrapped in masking tape with the port openings marked for valve setting.