Sold March 2006 Back to Archive

A 5 inch gauge Great Western Pannier tank, built to LBSC's "Pansy" design. Nicely made to start with, it has fallen on hard times (not to mention a little bodgery) in recent years. The engine has lost its grate, ashpan and top feed cover. The missing cover is explicable, there has evidently been some work done on the clack valves - unfortunately a local expert decided to soft solder the valve bodies onto the flange plate. Fortunately his soldering was so bad that it leaks copiously - if it had been slightly better, things would have got much more interesting when the boiler, at 80psi and elevated temperature, started to soften the solder...

Having had a thorough service at our friend's hands, he then put it away wet, resulting in the pistons sticking in the cylinders.

So much for the downside (and this all happened when the engine went on extended loan to a friend of the owner who agreed to maintain it in return for the use of the engine - there's probably a lesson here).

On the positive side, the engine was well made originally. It has a superheated copper boiler working at 80psi, feed by injector, crosshead pump and auxiliary hand pump in the tank. Inside slide valve cylinders with Stephenson's valve gear, with a pole reverser in the cab. There is a mechanical cylinder lubricator.

An engine worth sorting out, a design that was definitely one of LBSC's better offerings. I've had several over the last few years, there's a couple pictured in the archive.