Sold April 2011 Back to Archive

I’ve been involved, in a very minor way, with this design for a number of years. Derek Brown is our illustrious leader at Stamford SME, as the club boiler inspector I did the stage inspections on his boiler as it was built, the hydraulic test when complete and, finally, its initial steam test on our railway at home (my claim to fame being I was the second person ever to drive the engine!).

As I mentioned in the news at the time, I’m impressed with the design – it’s a large engine, which comes out at 4 ½ inch scale on 7 ¼ inch gauge, his engine ran beautifully “out of the box”, virtually silent and with an impressive amount of power, evident even running up and down in the confines of our line at home. Designed in CAD from the start, the drawings are excellent and kept up to date – the designer and Mark Smithers, his collaborator, also supplying parts and castings. There is a website dedicated to the engine, a variety of videos floating about of his engine in action (including its first time in steam here) and an active builder’s group on Yahoo. What more support could you need?

This engine is largely complete, one of around a dozen in various stages of construction around the country – a change in the builder’s circumstances has left him unable to continue the build. Bell Boilers provided the CE marked steel boiler, which is complete with all paperwork. The chassis is complete and pushes along, albeit at this stage fairly stiffly, although without tight spots. There is a box of parts to complete the engine, including many of the boiler fittings – including pressure and vacuum gauges although no water gauges – sheets for boiler and cylinder cladding and a variety of other odds and ends.

Whilst the thing has been put together quite decently, detail work is patchy – it really needed a bit more time finishing off components – and paintwork is grotty. I would be tempted to strip it and fettle on reassembly, which would result in a significant improvement – I think this is largely a matter of careful fitting and finishing rather than wholesale replacement of parts.

I didn’t get a chance to put it on the weighbeams yesterday, but would estimate it at around a quarter ton when finished and ready to run, similar to a Milner Hunslet or Romulus. The engine is complete with copies of all construction articles and a set of excellent well-detailed drawings.