In 1907 Henry Greenly published drawings for a 'Six Coupled Goods
Locomotive' in Gauge 2. It appears from surviving models built to
these plans that quite a few models were made, but not always
completed. This is Greenly's original drawing, owned by collector
Adam Goodyear:
The model subsequently appeared in Bassett Lowke's 1906 catalogue
and was also available in component form.
It's difficult to tell now which models were actually built by
Bassett Lowke and which assembled by amateurs. It's possible that my
example was an amateur build since it has been fitted with
Stephenson Link reversing motion not shown in Greenly's
drawing Here it is:
Like a lot of Gauge 2 models, the exact history of this little
engine is unclear. There's evidence of the boiler having been
steamed, but the cylinders had never been mounted in the frames! The
most likely explanation seems to me that it had originally been
built with slip eccentric valve gear as shown in Greenly's drawing,
but that a subsequent owner had decided to modify it with Stevenson
link motion.
The valve gear has been made to a very
good, almost modern, standard but is likely to have been carried out
before the Great War because Whitworth 1/16" and 3/32" threads have
been used throughout. These screw threads dissapeared from models
after 1918 in favour of BA (British Association) sizes and today is
virtually unobtainable. In refurbishing these ancient models I've
actually had to have batches of tiny Whitworth screws custom made,
paying special attention to their characteristic head form.
This picture shows one of the remanufactured 3/32" Whitworth screw
compared with a standard but not compatible 6BA size. Sadly many
historic models have been butchered by forcing BA size fasteners
into Whitworth threads.
This process had never been completed and for unknown reasons a new
cylinder stretcher was made to a good standard, but never drilled
for the mounting bolts! So it fell to me to finally complete this
lovely little model in it's intended form with working reversing
gear, a chicken feed fuel tank and tender tank with hand pump. In
this form it's a very powerful little engine, but the road to
success was a long and sometimes frustrating one.
The boiler had a long history of savage modifications which now had
to be reversed. Most seriously, two of the five water tubes had been
cut out and plugged with bits of brass. This hadn't been done well
and one of the plugs leaked, requiring the whole boiler to be heated
and silver solder reflowed into the leak. It can't be known why this
modification had been made and it was feared that the boiler might
not steam well enough with only 3 tubes, but some articles of the
time referred to three tube boilers and so it was decided to try it.
Here's the boiler after reflowing and pickling, now tested to modern
Model Engineering standards:
A 6 wick burner was made to go with the
Chicken Feed tank that was already fitted in the tender. This modern
innovation is itself a mystery appearing to date from modern times,
suggesting that there had been several efforts to get the little
engine to work, all of which had evidently failed since it came to
me dismantled with many fasteners and other parts missing.
Once complete, a long period of trial runs followed during which
numerous details were amended, Models of this age are of very
marginal performance compared with modern Gauge 1 designs and every
aspect requires fine tuning to reach that magic moment when for the
first time, the model becomes self sustaining and continues around
the track without slowing down!
Eventually, still running with three instead of five water tubes,
that happy day dawned. Success! And success it is! Here it is, with
a long coal train, running in January 2024:
The little 0-6-0 is not alone. My friend Adam Goodyear has found
one, and my own collection includes the tank
engine version. Hopefully these engines will benefit from the
experience of restoring this one to life and join the fleet of
operable live steam Gauge 2 locomotives.
Passengers too! The little 0-6-0 makes light of the heavy Great
Northern set.
The valve gear has been made to a very
good, almost modern, standard but is likely to have been carried out
before the Great War because Whitworth 1/16" and 3/32" threads have
been used throughout. These screw threads dissapeared from models
after 1918 in favour of BA (British Association) sizes and today is
virtually unobtainable. In refurbishing these ancient models I've
actually had to have batches of tiny Whitworth screws custom made,
paying special attention to their characteristic head form.
A 6 wick burner was made to go with the
Chicken Feed tank that was already fitted in the tender. This modern
innovation is itself a mystery appearing to date from modern times,
suggesting that there had been several efforts to get the little
engine to work, all of which had evidently failed since it came to
me dismantled with many fasteners and other parts missing.
