Sold November 2007 Back to Archive

A well-made 2 inch scale, coal-fired Clayton undertype wagon to the Robin Dyer design, as serialised in "Model Engineer"

Silver soldered copper boiler with smokebox superheater. Stainless steel ashpan. Feed by crank driven mechanical pump and injector. Auxiliary hand pump fitted in water tank behind cab. The mechanical pump delivers through a feed water heater mounted in the cab. Blowdown valve mounted to the front. Firing whilst stationary can be done through the front-mounted firehole door, on the move through the top-mounted door. Whilst designed to run on coal, these wagons are easily converted to gas firing if desired.

Twin cylinder, semi enclosed engine, driving through reduction gears and chain to the rear axle mounted differential - the gearing makes the wagon surprisingly powerful for its size. Mechanical lubricator mounted beneath water tank.

Cab controls for blower, injector steam and water feeds, reversing lever and regulator.

Wheels are rubber tyred, front wheels steered by Ackerman linkage as used in the prototype.

The trailer is planked construction on a rivetted steel chassis, quick detach ball-joint linkage to tractor, working leaf springs.

I was surprised at how well this one goes - we steamed it up a week or two ago and played with it round the car park for an hour (I had friends visiting, which meant that the test session got extended while we all had a play) - it pulls well and steamed enthusiastically. It's had a recent light overhaul, when most of the boiler fittings were replaced and the wagon was repainted - the top of the water tank remains to be done, but tins of both the red and green paint are included along with a spare new grate.