An interesting old engine, a survivor from the early days of the twentieth century when this 6 inch gauge Atlantic was allegedly built for H.A.Ivatt, designer of the prototype. It has all the looks of a works built engine, with finely detailed chassis, including counter-balanced weighshaft, elegantly sculpted eccentric straps and prototypical big end arrangement for the connecting rods.
On Ivatt's death it passed to his son-in-law, Oliver Bulleid - by then CME of the Southern Railway. In turn, it then passed to his son, H.A.V.Bulleid and features in his book "Master Builders of Steam", with a super period photograph of his daughters (O.V.S.Bulleid's grand-daughters, H.A.Ivatt's great grand-daughters) driving it on their garden railway.
At some stage the original boiler - almost certainly flanged and rivetted in copper - failed. Tragically it has been discarded, a clumsily proportioned replacement in steel with modern fittings has been made (but mercifully not yet fitted).
I've held onto this engine for some years - it's a project I'd like to do; it's certainly a project I'd hate to see anybody else do unsympathetically. It really needs conservation - the original metal I would regard as sacrosanct (rather like the rebuild we did of the Heywood locomotive "Katie", where the original frames were treated like religious artefacts!).
It's complete with a lethal looking motorized driving trolley; an envelope addressed to H.A.V.Bulleid and recycled by him to contain some hand written notes on firing the engine and his track; a copy of Bulleid's book "Master Builders of Steam" containing a picture of his daughters - Ivatt's grand-daughters - driving the Atlantic and a hardback copy of the biography of O.V.S.Bulleid.
