Regular visitors to the site will know that I don’t usually post 70 odd pictures for a loco and my descriptions are usually brief but these locos are exceptional. The last loco that I sold of this quality was the 3 ½” Britannia listed back in 2006. I still get regular enquires for the Britannia from would be buyers and have had at lease three this year! I make no excuses for extolling the virtues of these locomotives at length as I think they are of superb quality having been lovingly crafted by a master of his art. So here we are, not one, but two magnificent 7 1/4'' Jessie's built to Ken Swan's design.
The photos are of one of the locos and are spread over four pages. The link for the next page can be found at the bottom of the first three pages.
The dimensions are:
Loco:
Length - 32.5 inches
Width - 12.5 inches over bufferbeams / 13.75 inches over steps
Height - 18 inches wheel flange to chimney top
Box:
Length - 35 inches (plus extra 6 inches for handles)
Width - 16 inches
Height - 24 inches (including castors)
The builder is a coppersmith and sheet metal worker by trade and had a number of locomotives under his belt before he embarked on this project. No commercial castings were used in the construction of these locos. Each loco comes with the original hydraulic boiler certificate, a wooden box on casters, a hand pump extention rod, a stainless steel shovel and each one has two scale hand crafted lamps. The builder made his own patterns and has kept a full log of the builds which detail some eleven thousand parts that have been fabricated during the build. The buyers are able to choose from the following names:
King Lear
Victoria
Princess
Phoenix
Lord Jim
Numbers 3 and 5 have been taken and this leaves numbers 2, 4 and 7 available. As the numbers are also on the buffer beams, these are unable to be changed.
The builder would also be willing to consider making up a new nameplate for the buyer should they have a particular name in mind (but they would need to be a similar length due to the fittings). Now where do you get service like that?
Where appropriate the builder has made several modifications to the original design and I have done my best to detail these at the appropriate points in the description.
The cab and saddle tank are made out of 20 gauge brass with the saddle tank ends being flanged 16 gauge copper. The removable rear section of the roof has been strengthened to ensure the cab keeps its shape when removed. There is a gap of about 5/8" between the boiler cleading and the water tank and approximately ¼” of ceramic lagging which should keep the water in the saddle tank cool.
Cleading has been added, along with ceramic sheet insulation, to the lower front of the firebox (an area that this quite commonly missed) and cleading has also been extended to the boiler backhead where dummy washout plugs have been included along with a tray above the firebox door for the footplate crews cuppas. The backhead fittings are of a quality you would expect from a master craftsman and include two water level sight glasses with blow down valves. Each of the steel levers in the cab has a bronze handle. The pressure gauge has been flanged giving a scale appearance.
The boilers are commercially made with a working pressure of 100psi. The boilers were built by Daryl Lynton of Cornish Boilers before he retired and were constructed in September 2000. The locos have never been steams but have been run on compressed air for two and a half hours each.
A hand pump, not present on the original design, has been neatly concealed below the cab floor and is accessed by removing a very neat brass cover. There is also an axle pump and an injector. The injectors came from the late Norman Spinks. The cab including a very neat rocking lever to activate the drain cocks with brass plates stamped ‘open’ and ‘shut’ attached to the cab floor. Another rocking lever, neatly attached to the left hand cab side, activates the water supply to the injector. The running boards are steel and have been made in a single piece which varies from the original design. The chequer board in the cab is hand crafted for a scale appearance.
The inner smokebox is constructed from 1/8th inch thick aluminium tube to avoid any issues with rust. There is a four element stainless steel superheater and a four jet blower to ensure a good draw from the fire.
