Sold August 2024 Back to Archive

The work of a highly experienced, award-winning model engineer, he recorded 1,141 hours building the locomotive over a 12 month period from 2006 to 2007, with a further 343 hours to build the tender, starting in March 2007 and finishing on Christmas Day 2008. The engine went on to take First Prize in the scratch-built model class at the Elgin Model Fair in that year.

Work over the following four years saw the production of several items of rolling stock, including a Highland Railway First and Second class coach of the period.

His final notes mention further work on the locomotive - amongst other things there is currently no main steam connection from header to cylinders; one can only surmise what the builder had in mind when re-visiting his earlier work. As with his other models, the locomotive remains in ex-works condition, unsteamed from new.

Eagle-eyed readers may have spotted the lack of a pressure gauge. Prototypically accurate, the original locomotive was built only five years after Eugène Bourdon patented his pressure gauge, concerned by the prevalence of boiler explosions on the railways at that time. The new-fangled technology had, apparently, yet to travel north of the border by1855.

A folder with the model contains photographs of the original locomotives and the model during build, design drawings for the boiler and valve gear, and award certificate.

Complete with a fitted transport box and length of display track (on which it stands in our house for now, keeping company with a Crampton of the same era and equally handsome lines).

Harry Clyne produced a prodigious quantity of high quality models during his life, many award winners at shows throughout the country. They encompassed locomotives (including Stroudley's rebuild of "Raigmore") and traction engines (including the super 4 inch scale Tasker we've sold recently), as well as finely detailed models of stationary engines and gunnery.

As a child he built models with his father, following a five year apprenticeship he joined the RAF, working on Vulcan bombers. A stint running his own motorcycle repair business was followed by employment at a company pioneering fish farming, where he worked as a diver, designer and engineer - a heady combination!

After retirement he came back to model engineering, from the start picking up awards for the quality of his models.