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Not currently for sale (nor ever would be if I had my way, there's a space crying out for it in the house, but sadly Mrs P shares Captain Howey's views on the aesthetic virtues of L&B engines), we had this one outside during a routine tidy up yesterday so I took the opportunity to get some pictures to show one of the finest narrow gauge models I've seen. Built by the late Keith Massey, a man whose work I remain in awe of for its quantity, quality and performance of the finished engines. There's more about this extraordinary man here, we had several of his engines last year all of which ran beautifully.

I won't bore you with words about this one, the pictures tell the story. Worth looking out for details like tyre bolts in the bogie wheels; nameplates with hand-fretted letters sweated to the backplate; flanging around the inner edge of the motion brackets to replicate the look of the original casting; couplings which are works of art in their own right. At 3 1/2 inch gauge it comes out as a large engine, over four feet long and a substantial two man lift.

Unsteamed from new, we've run it on air in the workshop - there's a short clip of it here, goes exactly as expected!

I may yet have to work on Mrs P some more...