5 inch gauge LNER 01 2-8-0

A 5 inch gauge LNER 01 2-8-0, Gresley's three-cylinder heavy goods engine design for the Great Northern Railway - 20 were built between 1913 and 1920.

The model was built by Frank Goodman. Born in 1905 he was unable to follow his father into the railways due to colour blindness. Instead he joined the 2nd Battalion Coldstream Guards, taking part in trooping the colour - the picture opposite shows him in the early 1920s - then, in later life, served for 25 years as a police officer in Leicester.

In retirement he moved to Norfolk, spending his time either gardening or working on the locomotive in his workshop. Virtually complete, although unpainted when he died, the locomotive was finished by a family friend and steamed for his daughter. It was subsequently loaned to the Holkham Hall Bygones Museum where it remained until the museum was closed in 2015.

A well-built engine, fit and finish of the motionwork is good - it runs well on air. Test steamed when new, it has spent the last thirty years on loan to a museum and remains in excellent, as-new condition throughout.

Boiler is a magnificent creation by Alec Farmer, Reeves' renowned boiler maker and friend of Martin Evans, the designer (who had written up a construction series on the O1 in the "Model Engineer" magazine starting in 1968). Completed in 1969, it is fully silver soldered, complete with superheaters and thermic syphon.

Paintwork is to a utilitarian standard - the tender panelled and lined, the engine itself in plain unadorned green. Usable as is, given the quality of engineering in the rest of the engine, it would amply repay repainting and lining to a similar standard.