Here is the Jessie that got away. Once upon a time a gentleman built six stunning locos.
We were priviledged to sell five of them for him through but one had already escaped north of the border.
"Sir David" is the one that got away, having been sold to a friend of the builders upon completion.
I make no excuses for extolling the virtues of this locomotive at length and listing plenty of pictures as I think the construction shows superb quality and a loco that has been lovingly crafted by a master of his art.
So here we are a magnificent 7 1/4'' Jessie, built to Ken Swan's design.
The pictures show one of the previous locos as the builder lives locally to me but all of the locos were built to the same extremely high standard and "Sir David" has never been steamed.
The photos 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:
Box:
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.
The 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:
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.
Length - 32.5 inches
Width - 12.5 inches over bufferbeams / 13.75 inches over steps
Height - 18 inches wheel flange to chimney top
Length - 35 inches (plus extra 6 inches for handles)
Width - 16 inches
Height - 24 inches (including castors)
