Sold May 2006 Back to Archive

A five inch gauge Hunslet to Don Young's design, built in 1991. It came in rather forlorn looking and dusty, it's had a (rather cursory) clean up and hydraulic test so that I could give it a run this afternoon. It has a steel boiler which, with the new regulations allowing for two year hydraulic tests for club running, is becoming a more attractive proposition for locomotives in this gauge.

Steel boiler with expanded tubes, feed by injector with hand pump on footplate. Twin safety valves. Twin water gauges with blowdown. Cast iron cylinders, inside valves actuated by Stephenson's valve gear with pole reverser in cab. Mechanical lubricator.

It runs well enough, there are numerous little jobs need doing - the drain cocks need attention, the regulator is stiff to operate, one set of eccentric straps have been fitted upside down (which means the oiling hole is on the bottom), one smokebox door handle is broken off. There is a cab which I removed to allow better access to the controls when I ran the engine. If it were mine (yes, I know it is mine, but you know what I mean) I would scrap the cab, but then if I managed to find a full size Hunslet I'd probably get rid of the cab on that as well - I think they look much better as they originally worked in the quarries.

The engine has its original boiler test paperwork and is complete with a set of drawings.