Unknown OO Gauge Clockwork 0-6-0 Tank Loco

[Blowke]

Evening all,

 

Utter noob to the site here and I already fear that me trying to be original with my profile name (and not checking here first) will upset, I sincerely hope not!

I come with seasonal greetings and hopefully intriguing photos with which to prise out your seasoned knowledge.
I have been lucky enough to have come across a group of three OO Gauge clockwork tank locos, One is a Hornby Dublo Clockwork GWR N2, which is very nice and i'm lucky to have found, the other is a very early Pyramid Toys N2, which again is very nice and i plan to add SR Decals to, but the third (and the example pictured) is an utter mystery. I cannot find anything even remotely like it. I do note that W&H or Walker-Riemsdyk did produce something quite similar in appearance (Pistons, sloped coal bunker, double nipple safety valve), but that was only ever produced in O gauge to my (very limited) knowledge.
The body is made of tabbed brass,  and appears to have been stamped and folded by a machine, Is it possible this is a kit that was sold by one of the myriad of garden shed companies in the 70's and 80's? If so, can anyone help identify the mechanism?
I offer my sincerest thanks in advance.
 

[Nearholmer]

It looks like van Riemsdijk to me - he certainly made locos in 00 as well as 0.

 

IIRC there were two versions, the side-tank as yours, and the same thing as a saddle-tank.

 

A giveaway would be turned-aluminium cylinders, which yours looks to have. I've got two of his 0 gauge locos, and the one with outside cylinders, a 4-4-4T also has turned aluminium, which is a pretty unusual material to use on a model loco and I wonder if it was cheap in the late 1940s or early 1950s because it had been produced in such volume for aircraft use during WW2.

 

Also, his reversing arrangement was quite distinctive, with cogs that slid to-and-fro, with a coil spring to push them in one direction, and a finger of thin steel sheet to push them the other. I think I can see that in your photo.

 

Kevin

Edited December 4, 2019 by Nearholmer

[Blowke]

9 minutes ago, Nearholmer said:

It looks like Riemsdijk to me - he certainly made locos in 00 as well as 0.

 

Wowzers, OK, well that's good news and a bit of an honour. He was quite a bloke.
From what i've read about him, he didn't start producing locos until his retirement in the early 80's, would you say that this is an acurate assesment, or is this possibly a throwback from his earlier years. Did he produce batches of the same locos, or were they individually modelled? Sorry for all the questions after you've been such a good egg and replied already, but this is facinating to me, i'm used to Bowmans throwing hot oil everywhere, not this intricate loveliness!

Seeing as it was found amongst such scarce stablemates I figured it was interseting. Thanks Nearholmer.

[Nearholmer]

His clockwork locos in 0 and 00, and clockwork tramcars, were made between the end of WW2 and about 1955 (maybe 1953?), and that's when I think yours dates from. From what I can work out, he built in fairly small batches.

 

His post-retirement work was in Gauge 1.

 

It is really difficult to find out about the clockwork period, old adverts seem to be the only solid evidence apart from the models themselves. I do know that Allen Levy, leading light of Ace Trains, the classic 0 gauge revivalists, knew JvR, and I had high hopes that he might know more, but he doesn't - I asked him about it, and he said they'd never talked about that phase of JvR's work.

 

If you wade through my thread, there are photos of my two, and I think of my Walker-Fenn, which was the ancestor.

[Blowke]

10 minutes ago, Nearholmer said:

His clockwork locos in 0 and 00, and clockwork tramcars, were made between the end of WW2 and about 1955 (maybe 1953?), and that's when I think yours dates from. From what I can work out, he built in fairly small batches.

 

His post-retirement work was in Gauge 1.

 

It is really difficult to find out about the clockwork period, old adverts seem to be the only solid evidence apart from the models themselves. I do know that Allen Levy, leading light of Ace Trains, the classic 0 gauge revivalists, knew JvR, and I had high hopes that he might know more, but he doesn't - I asked him about it, and he said they'd never talked about that phase of JvR's work.

 

If you wade through my thread, there are photos of my two, and I think of my Walker-Fenn, which was the ancestor.

 

 

A-wade-ing I shall go.
Thanks heaps, thats all very exciting. I'm very grateful.

 

 

[sncf231e]

Your locomotive is pictured and described in Book 4 of British Toy Trains by Michael Foster. The history of JVR is told in that book in a letter by John van Riemsdijk himself.

 

I can strongly recommend the whole series of 5 books by Michael Foster. They are even more interesting than my own books: http://sncf231e.nl/my-e-books/

 

Regards

Fred

Edited December 5, 2019 by sncf231e

[Blowke]

Thanks Fred!

I've just gone and got a copy on order, so that's very much appreciated, it also gives me reference as to what buffers and ancillaries it needs which is very helpful!