28/08/2024
This is another 'project' loco that I saw for sale on Ebay and had to have. The seller did not know what it was but I recognised it straight away as a Canadian Switcher designed by P E Hunt. This was briefly described by LBSC in Model Engineer in 1929. There was not a construction series for it and just a general arrangement drawing of the loco and tender. They are very rare and I have only found mention of three ever being built. One of them is this one which was built by Roy Simmons, a past member of the N25GA. It does not follow the general arrangement drawing 100% but is pretty close. The N25GA do have a few of the original P E Hunt drawings for the loco - the cylinders, valve gear and the tender handpump along with the general arrangement drawing. I don't know whether a full set was ever offered for sale.
Some photos:
Locomotive in 2009
Locomotive at the 1st N25GA rally at Cheltenham in 1975
Locomotive at the 1st N25GA rally at Cheltenham in 1975
Locomotive at the 1st N25GA rally at Cheltenham in 1975
I don't know which of the two gentlemen driving the loco is Roy Simmons
Loco as advertised on Ebay
Unfortunately, as is often the case, the loco is now missing a few parts - cab, domes, chimney, running boards, smokebox door and the axle pumps. Nothing that cannot be replaced fairly easily. At least the tender and the loco stayed together. Apparently, a friend of Roy's says that Roy had started to strip the loco down for a rebuild and then passed away before it was completed. Whoever cleared his workshop would not have known what parts went with the loco so they have been lost forever.
This project is going to have to wait until I have completed Green Arrow but I did start drawing it up in 3D CAD with a view to making the drawings available again.
Roy made his own wooden patterns for the cylinders and fortunately he gave them to the N25GA so we still have them. The axle pumps are a bit unusual in that the eccentric rods drive rocker arms and another linkage then drives the axle pumps themselves. I am not sure of the reasoning behind this but I will replace the pumps as on the original. When I get around to doing the drawings though I will redesign the pumps so they are driven directly from the eccentrics and remove the rockers.
I have had the boiler tested and it passed with flying colours so that is one less thing to worry about on the rebuild.
I couldn't resist and made a new smokebox door for it as a bit of a fun project. A friend and fellow member of the N25GA, Des Adeley, kindly donated some lumps of bronze for this and these were machined and silver soldered together to make one thick disc.
This disc was then machined to a suitable shape.
The machined disc was then taken to the milling machine and lots of holes drilled and tapped to take 8BA studs and the handrail knobs. This was all done using the PCD function on the DRO but it could have been done using the rotary table.
It turned out really nice and I'm very pleased with it. It seems a shame to have to paint it. Incidently, the whole front is a push fit in the smokebox barrel and comes out for cleaning the smokebox etc. This was actually done in January 2022 but I have only just got around to writing it up. I'm pretty sure that I machined a groove in the spigot that fits in the smokebox to take an O ring to make sure it is airtight when fitted.
That's it for now. The rest will have to wait until the Green Arrow is finished. Hopefully, that will not be too long now.
To be continued
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