Sold February 2017 Back to Archive

A beautifully made "Sweet Pea", the work of a fastidious engineer who visited the works last week - he probably came hoping for a look round when he dropped the engine off, instead he spent most of the time being quizzed about how he'd made such a neat job of the cab sheet cleading, the handrail knobs, the brake stand...

Silver soldered copper boiler supplied by Blackgates Engineering, feed by injector and axle pump with auxiliary hand pump under the nearside footplate. Cast iron cylinders with slide valves actuated by Hackworth gear, pole reverser in the cab. Twin mechanical lubricators.

The chassis has been tested on air, the engine comes with a purpose built rolling road to run it on. Standard of fit and finish is excellent throughout, platework is beautiful, love the details like crosshead slipper oilers. The builder departed from the published design in fitting solid locomotive type connecting and coupling rods rather than marine pattern - he had intended to profile the ends to a less boxy shape but didn't get around to it, this could still be done quite easily, improving the proportions. We forgave him the omission when he said he copied the very sensible little end oil trough detail from "Stafford". Flattery gets you everywhere at SRS (which is worth remembering if you've got a visit planned).

Pretty much all that remains is to strip and paint the engine. It would merit a really good job, to make a particularly fine example of this popular design (and the builder did actually get a cup of tea and tour of the workshop before he went, don't worry)