Mainline Steam

I'm not really a railway man but I don't think you can get much more majestic than an express passenger locomotive running on the mainline. Anyway, on Sunday while revising I heard whistles down at the railway station so shot off down to the station and saw these two locomotives getting ready to take the Great Britain VII train out of Plymouth. An unusual partnership of motive power with No. 5029 'Nunney Castle' leading and No. 34046 'Braunton' behind. They sounded fantastic pulling out of the station with the 14 or so coach train on behind!

Anyway, back to revision...

The Engineer.

A Brace of Bowmans

I wonder what the actual collecting noun for a lot of Bowman steam engines is!

The product of my collecting habit, a full set of Bowman stationary engines and all bar one of the accessories (if anyone has a Bowman fretsaw, I'd be interested!)...

For the really pedantic, this is of course not exactly a full set - I don't have the metal based 'M' and wooden based 'E' versions of each engine, but I have both an M135 and an E135 as representatives of this.

I still have to complete the restoration of the M101 - I will do that when I return again from university over the summer and will keep you all updated with this.

The Engineer.

Today's Haul

The postman dropped these off today...

A Karsten Gintschel 'Tornado' steam turbine with accompanying train set and a Cheddar Models 'Pipit' steam plant. The Cheddar plant came in exchange for a Wilesco Steam Roller and the turbine came off of eBay. 

The Carpenter came around this afternoon with a bottle of meths and we ran the turbine 4 or 5 times...each run is only about 5 minutes so that's not as impressive a feat as it sounds. The sound it makes is fantastic though!

Will put a bit more information on the turbine once I have some photos and video of it running. I have yet to make my mind up about the Cheddar plant. She'll either be going into a loco, a small boat or into a replica of the Cheddar 'Pipit' generating plant...

The Engineer. 

Bowman M101 Rebuild

I am quite a fan of the old Bowman toy steam engines from the 20's and 30's. These were the engines that came before Mamod, and with their demise led to the establishment of the Mamod brand of engines. The nerdy collector in me has come out yet again and I have been after a #101 engine for some time. This M101 came up on eBay the other day and I managed to get it for a very reasonable price! It needs a bit of work, but I have most of the bits required in my spares box and comes with the nice Bowman wooden box...

The boiler stay has rustedd out and has been patched up. This needs replacing...

The lovely old Bowman box...

The Engineer.