MikeOxon

Thanks Chris - the title was a last minute idea as I was posting. The research took quite a while, as there's a lot of conflicting information out there! I'm realising that history is a very difficult subject for research. There used to be an Airfix kit and I'm not sure which prototype that was based on.

I have not forgotten about my plans to create a diorama, as described in my Broad Gauge blog. While I was researching the early days of the GWR, however, I found myself thinking about what had gone before – back to the ultimate pre-grouping period! This led me to Trevithick’s engines, of which I photographed a replica at Blists Hill Museum near Telford: Trevithick replica at Blists Hill Museum Trevithick was a remarkable inventor but, sadly, not a good businessman. He not only demonstrated, by 1802, that a compact high-pressure steam engine could be adapted to both road and rail uses but also that such a vehicle could be propelled by adhesion alone. In his Penydarren locomotive of 1804, possibly his most famous design, he turned the exhaust steam up the chimney, so creating the ‘blast pipe’ which was to prove an essential component of later locomotives. He sold all the rights to his designs and emigrated to South America to seek his fortune. He eventually failed there and died in poverty, back in England. His son, Francis, wrote a two-volume biography ‘Life of Richard Trevithick’, published 1872, which describes his father’s life and inventions. In Vol.1, page 181, there is an illustration of the Tramway engine that was built for South Wales in 1803: Next, as so often seems to happen when I start a new research project, an entire ‘can of worms’ began to open up! The book also notes, however, that “particulars are taken from Trevithick's letters where other evidences are conflicting . It is probable that more than one tramroad - engine was constructed in Wales at that time.” The dimensions listed above do not correspond with the associated drawings! For example by scaling from the drawing, if the wheelbase is 4’ 1” then the boiler is only about 5 feet long, while the flywheel is about 8’ 9” diameter, so there is no way it could have fitted through the Plymouth-works tunnel on the Penydarren tramway! Later in the book, there are references to three different engines, including the one that I saw (in replica) at Blists Hill museum, Coalbrookdale. “We have no account of the railway work done by the Coalbrookdale travelling engine of 1802. The Welsh tramroad - engine of 1803 took a gross load of 25 tons, at the rate of four miles an hour, over a bad road, with sharp curves and stiff inclines, and without load ran at a speed of sixteen miles an hour. The Newcastle locomotive of 1804 was, in general outline, similar to the Welsh locomotive, but in detail superior. The wheels were to run on rails instead of trám-plates, and were 9 inches farther apart than the Welsh locomotive, giving increased steadiness. The boiler and return tube were wholly of wrought iron; the fire -door and chimney were at one end of the boiler, and the cylinder and guide-rods at the other end, giving more room to the engineman than on the Welsh locomotive, which had all those things at one end of the boiler. The cylinder of the Newcastle locomotive was of the same size as the Coalbrookdale engine of 1802 , being 7 inches in diameter, with a 3-feet stroke, and therefore was probably made at Coalbrookdale, from Trevithick's drawings and patterns of 1802, with its regulating blastpipe and steam of from 60 to 145 lbs . on the square inch .” At this point, there is even a Swindon connection, as shown by correspondence between Joseph Armstrong and Francis Trevithick: “F. TREVITHICK , Esq . May 10th, 1870 DEAR SIR, By this post I have forwarded a tracing of the old locomotive for Mr. Trevithick, and likewise some copies of an extract from the Gateshead Observer.' They would have been sent ere now, but I have had some difficulty in procuring an original from which to get a tracing, and have also spent time in hunting up this extract, and having it reprinted . Yours truly, JOSEPH ARMSTRONG Esq, Swindon.” In Plate V. , a is a steam-cylinder 7 inches diameter, 3 -feet stroke , fixed in the boiler ; b , piston-rod ; c, crosshead ; d, guides ; e , stay ; f, connecting rod ; g, crank ; h, driving axle ; i, fly-wheel ; j, gear-wheels ; k , four driving wheels, 3 feet 1 inch diameter, 4 feet 8 inches from centre to centre ; 1, four-way cock ; m, lever for working cock ; n, plug-rod ; o , cylindrical wrought- iron boiler, 4 feet diameter , 6 feet 6 inches long ; p, firegrate ; q, return fire - tube of wrought iron , 2 feet 3 inches diameter at the fire -door end, 1 foot diameter at the chimney end ; r, chimney ; s , fire-door ; t , railway of longitudinal timbers, 3 inches wide, 4 inches deep ; u, cross-sleepers, 4 inches wide , 3 inches deep ; 1 foot 1 inch apart ; gauge between wood rails , 4 feet 10 inches ; weight of engine in working order, 4 tons. Trevithick's 'Newcastle' engine After searching for more information, I found Anthony Dawson’s much more recent book ‘Before Rocket: The Steam Locomotive up to 1829’, published 2020, in which Chapter 1 reviews Trevithick’s work between 1802 and 1814. This text agrees that there were at least three similar locomotives. Dawson points out, however, that the Penydarren locomotive “was built to be convenient for the driver to work the engine and for the witnesses to see what was going on” He suggests that “this would probably rule out the cylinder being at the same end as the chimney. Thus, it is more likely that the Penydarren locomotive had the cylinder at the opposite end to the chimney and firebox, somewhat analogous with the Gateshead [Newcastle] Engine.” I do not know why he discards Francis Trevithick’s description and statements in reaching this conclusion, since the earlier work appears to be clear about the differences between the two engines. There is also the matter of a ‘replica’ built by The Museum of Wales (Waterfront Museum, Swansea), completed in 1981. Their guidebook states “that the replica was built working from Trevithick’s original documents and plans (now in the National Museum of Science and Industry).” This leaves the question “which plans?”. Their ‘replica’ places the chimney at the opposite end of the boiler from the cylinder, unlike the illustration in Francis Trevithick’s book but similar to the later Newcastle engine Perhaps I am missing some recent piece of scholarship but it is hard to see why the layout of the later Newcastle engine was preferred for the Welsh replica over Francis Trevithick’s 1872 description of the Welsh engine. Francis T. did, however, note that there was conflicting evidence and that “It is probable that more than one tramroad-engine was constructed in Wales at that time”. As I noted above, the engine, as drawn in his book, could not have run through the tunnel on the Penydarren tramway, although reducing the size of the flywheel would be a relatively simple modification. It seems that, after a lot of reading and thinking, the can of worms remains open! Creating a Model Naturally, I felt the need to create my own model but then I found a 3D printable design, created for the Prusa printer on the ‘Printables’ website This work is licensed under a Creative Commons (4.0 International License) Attribution—Noncommercial—Share Alike @ThorinOakenshield. This model, however, is a much larger and more sophisticated model than my own usual designs but I thought I might re-scale and simplify the design. Then, there is the question of ‘which engine does it represent?’ I tried my method of overlaying the drawing on p.181 of Trevithick’s book over a still from the video of the ‘Printables’ model and … in all the major respects they fit well together! (note that the video image is not quite ‘side-on’) Overlay of Trevithick drawing (red) on ‘Printables’ model So, whether or not this is actually the Penydarren engine or another Trevithick prototype, I feel that I am close to the appearance of one of the very first locomotive engines ever to run on rails! I decided to reduce the dimensions of my version, to fit a 4’ 4” gauge trackbed in 4 mm/foot scale, as the track gauge seems to be the only firm figure we have! To do this, I imported the drawing on p.181 of Trevithick’s book into ‘Fusion 360’ as a ‘canvas’ and then scaled it to the correct gauge at 4mm/foot scale. This confirmed the wheel diameter as 15 mm (prototype 3’ 9”). Drawing from Trevithick's book scaled in Fusion 360 Next, I loaded the .stl file for the wheels, downloaded from the web, into ‘Fusion 360’ as a ‘mesh body’. I laid this body over the above drawing and adjusted the size until the wheel diameter matched the drawing. This needed a scale factor of 21.34%. I imported all the .stl files for the web model into the ‘Cura’ software and re-sized them all by the same scale factor. Then I loaded all the re-scaled files into ‘Fusion 360’ as mesh bodies. I could then move each of the parts within ‘Fusion 360’ into its appropriate location around the boiler, as shown below against the ‘canvas’ backdrop: ‘Printables’ files, re-scaled and loaded into Fusion 360 This confirmed that the re-scaled parts should all fit together as required. It also indicated, however, that some parts would be too thin to print successfully at the reduced scale. In particular, the boiler casing would be far too thin, so I decided it would probably be easier to design a new part for this component and, maybe, for some other parts as well. The next step will be to review all the parts for their suitability for printing at 4 mm scale and make modifications where necessary. In the meantime, I show a couple of 3D views of the model, rendered in ‘Fusion 360’: Two rendered views of 3D-model assembled in Fusion 360 from ‘Printables’ files Mike

Looks good! One of my favourite engines, especially since I know that my wife's Great-grandfather drove it! Looking forward to seeing what you do next 🙂 Mike

Some people do both - e.g. Mikkel's Farthing blog and his Workbench thread. I chose a blog because it forms a diary that I find useful as a personal record as well as, hopefully, being of interest to some others. Threads do tend to wander around 'off topic' and, while more entertaining for many people are, possibly, less useful to the original 'owner'.

'points to a minimum' is certainly music to my ears! Bradford has some wonderful old buildings and a steep hillside to form a backdrop. I won't have room for much scenery and rather like the idea of showing how places that have long-since been swallowed up in Greater London were still small villages in the first half of the 19th century

A quick Google search indicated several 3D print options. In order to be used to lift a locomotive, it will have to be a rather substantial tree. There is a 3D model online of an 800 year-old Wych Elm in Scotland which has succumbed to Elm Disease but not before it had been scanned for the model. It looks as though it could have been up to the job.

I think an Elm tree might be a bit too big for my little printer! After Dutch Elm Disease, it's going to be hard to find a prototype to work from.

Thank you Chris. I have some Stadden figures somewhere that I bought ages ago and never got around to painting - there's a lot of stuff like that in my various boxes! I'm going to have to do a lot of research, to find out what a railway really looked like in the first half of the 19th century - photos were rather rare then. I must search around this site too - @Schooner's thread is one that springs to mind. Maritime topics are not something I know much about - I've never been too keen on boats! I'm currently spending a lot of time trying to find out more about that first stretch of the GWR between Paddington and Maidenhead, so don't expect rapid progress on the modelling front, unless I'm distracted by some other strange piece of rolling stock that I just HAVE to model 🙂 Mike

Phew! for a moment I thought one of us had flipped 🤪

Thank you William - that's exactly the sort of comment I was hoping for. It's a long time since I've designed any sort of layout, so any thoughts are very welcome. There's a lot to think about 🙂

On one or two occasions, I have received comments along the lines of “we want a layout”. From the beginning of my exploration of the broad gauge, it has been my intention to produce some sort of layout or diorama to display the various models of rolling stock that I’ve constructed. Of course I already have a small layout carrying both narrow and standard gauge routes, based in Oxfordshire, towards the end of the 19th century. This layout continues to provide entertainment to my grand-children and I do not intend to replace it with a broad gauge version. Unfortunately, broad gauge railways in 4mm scale require considerably more space than a traditional 00 gauge layout, so I shall be restricted to something rather simple . At the beginning of this blog, I described how my exploration of family history led to my exploring the area around Bullo Pill and the Forest of Dean. I also found a very thorough Accident Report on a collision in November 1868, which provided detailed descriptions of the make-up of both the mail train and the cattle train that were involved in the accident. While I did not intend to model the accident itself, I did use these descriptions to recreate two trains of the mid 19th century period. My first thought was to lay out a simple section of track representing the cutting close to Cockshoot Bridge, where the accident occurred but soon began to realise that this would not make a very interesting scene. Simple diorama plan During the period when I was building the models for these two trains, I discovered the possibilities opened up by 3D printing . The restrictions imposed by Covid gave me plenty of time to practice my 3D modelling skills, using 'Fusion 360' software, and I was soon enjoying the excitement of creating models of prototypes that I had previously placed firmly in the ‘too difficult’ box. Mail train Cattle train Gradually, I began to realise that virtually any type of early 19th-century rolling stock was within my grasp, given the limited dimensions of the actual vehicle at that period. I got somewhat carried away and started churning out models of all sorts of prototype – whatever caught my fancy at the time! An advantage of creating small models by 3D printing is that once designed, they take very little time to print, such that I soon found myself with quite an extensive collection of models covering prototytpes that operated from the earliest days of the GWR. Although more of these prototypes than I initially expected did appear in the Bullo Pill and Forest of Dean areas, it was clear that I was also creating stock more appropriate for other areas, such as the South Devon railway and the original stretch of the GWR between Paddington and Maidenhead. This left me with much food for thought, when I came to think of how to create a scene that could be representative of all these areas. As a first step I assembled a few representative trains from the various models that I have made so far. My first model train shown below is based on contemporary illustrations by J.C. Bourne of Bath and Bristol Temple Meads stations. The very short wheelbase carriages (6 feet on 7’ gauge) did not survive very long and were ‘ordered off the line’ following a Board Meeting on 12th July 1838! ‘Argus’ (Firefly-class) with 1840s passenger train, comprising: luggage truck, closed 2nd, open 2nd, posting carriage, horse box, carriage truck When I first made a model of ‘Aurora’, I thought of these 4-4-0ST engines as primarily South Devon engines. Later, I discovered that several engines of this class were employed on trains working into the Forest of Dean from Bullo Pill, so they tied in with my earlier plans! To my surprise, no fewer than 11 of the ‘Bogie-class’ engines were deployed there between 1854 and 1861. My ‘removals’ train, shown below, was inspired by an article in the Broad Gauge Society journal ‘Broadsheet’ No.26, p10 , which featured the Bristol firm of Knee Brothers and their first recorded use of a Pantechnicon being transported by rail in 1847. ‘Aurora’ 4-4-0ST with Furniture removal train, comprising Henson patent Van, pantechnicon,brake van, horse box, luggage van I was very surprised to discover that engines of the ‘Sir Watkin’ class, original built as condensing engines for the Metropolitan Railway, served for a short time at Bullo Pill. I only know this because my wife’s great-grandfather was fined £1 on 26th April 1870 for “passing the danger signal running ‘Sir Watkin’ into collision with ‘Bulkeley”. I found that there had been another accident on the Forest of Dean line in 1863, when a train of 70 wagons broke free and led to a ‘pile up’, said to be 15 wagons high, which took 5 days to clear! After that, trains were limited to 45 trucks, although these were reported to be ‘12 tonners’. My collection of 12 ton wagon models was built when I was struggling with a problem of ‘stringing’ with my Prusa 3D printer, so they form a motley collection, including some poorly-printed models. ‘Sir Watkin’ with Bullo Pill coal train with seven 12 ton wagons My last group of models comprises three of the engines ordered to Brunel’s impossible specifications. 'Vulcan' was the first engine to be steamed on the GWR, having been delivered by barge to West Drayton in 1837. I confess that these are my favourite models and are currently displayed on a case on a shelf in the living room, where their gleaming brass-work always attracts attention. As Brunel once wrote “we have a splendid engine of Stephenson's, it would be a beautiful ornament in the most elegant drawing room.” Brunel’s engines: ‘Aeolus’ (rebuilt), ‘Vulcan’, and ‘Eagle’ In addition to all these, I also have made a model of a piston carriage as used on the South Devon Railway: South Devon Atmospheric Railway piston carriage and train So, what to do with all these models? One common factor in the early operations of the GWR is their close association with canals and docks. At the London end, materials for construction of the new railway were brought by the Grand Union Canal to depot set up at West Drayton, the place where Daniel Gooch first started his work for the GWR. Notably, the first engine ‘Vulcan’ was unloaded from a barge there through the use of lifting tackle and a convenient Elm Tree! Later, coal was delivered by sea and canal from Newcastle to coke ovens established between the canal and railway at West Drayton. Similarly, the small dock at Bullo Pill was used for the export of coal brought down by railway from the Forest of Dean. The first major civil engineering work on the GWR was the viaduct at Hanwell, named after Lord Wharncliffe, who had chaired the committee leading the GWR Bills on their passage through Parliament. Wharncliffe Viaduct - by P.G.Champion 8th July 2007- Own work, CC BY 2.0 uk, Other characteristic features of the early railway were the Brunel-designed stations, the round-house engine shed at Paddington, and the prolific use of wagon turntables for the movement of rolling stock at stations by manual labour and horses. I have an idea that it might be possible to illustrate these various features in a ‘generic’ diorama designed to capture the ‘character’ of the broad gauge... not forgetting, of course, that Elm Tree 🙂 The 1879 OS map of the area around Bullo Pill dock contains many of the features that I would like to represent. I could modify the ‘dock’ into a generic canal basin and rotate the main line running North-South over a viaduct on the left hand side of the map to run across the top as a backdrop to the scene. Extract from OS 25” maps surveyed 1879 CC-BY license as shown I’d be interested in any suggestions my readers might want to make about how this could become an interesting scene covering a wide range of potential presentations. Mike

In the July 1837 issue of Herapath's Railway Magazine, there is a statement regarding the GWR (p.22) that "On the entire works at present under contract, there are from 6,200 to.6,300 persons constantly employed, and about 460 horses. There are also four locomotive and two stationary engines, for drawing the waggons, and working the inclined planes." I do appreciate that I have a valued readership, from whom I derive considerable encouragement, but the last couple of posts received less comment than usual, so I thought I may be getting too esoteric even for my faithful followers. 😃 I have been exploring some fairly deep rabbit-holes and hope to emerge with some more practical ideas once i have absorbed all the new information.

Part of the point of photographic grey was the dull matt finish, to eliminate reflections. The engine at New Street seem to have more of a 'sheen' than I would have expected from matt grey.

The rolling stock built when the days of the broad gauge were numbered was designed to be convertible but I don't think it was done in normal operations. The difference in loading gauge was another problem when transferring from broad to narrow gauge.

indeed, and that's the problem here - so little data! I'll keep digging

Thank you for your kind remarks, William (Lacathedrale). I felt that I was becoming obsessed with minor details of no relevance to anyone! After a career in research, I like to chase any anomaly I find 🙂 As L.P. Hartley wrote — 'The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there.'. Mike

Thank you for commenting, Mikkel - I was beginning to think I had strayed beyond even your wide-ranging interests! Edward Lane clearly came from a strongly artistic family. It is a pity that his notebooks and drawings, lodged in the Science Museum, are not more readily available in digital form. It would seem that he drew quite a number of engines and other rolling stock, many of which I have not seen. His father was much more widely known, with a Wikipedia article and several images on the web, including a later portrait of Princess Victoria: Mike

Well, that's good news!! It helps me to continue my research when I know others find it of interest. It always surprises me to realise how rapidly information about earlier times is 'lost'. We tend to assume we live in an 'information age' where everything is instantly available but that is far from the case. I have read Robert Harris' book 'Second Sleep', which provides a plausible reminder of how easily our civilisation could 'disappear', just like many others before it. Mike

I have written about Henson's patent, as applied on the broad gauge GWR, in my blog at https://www.rmweb.co.uk/blogs/entry/25862-broad-gauge-covered-van/ Mike

In my last few posts, I’ve been delving into the almost lost world of the early days of the GWR broad gauge. I notice that my previous post aroused little comment so, perhaps, I have moved rather too far from what most people think of as ‘railway modelling’ - but I do like using models as a way of improving our understanding of these early engines. I do appreciate the various 'likes' that many of you have given me. Before I move back into more familiar territory, there is one more piece of history to record, regarding an engine that may not have existed at all – at least not in the form in which it was described. Francis Whishaw on the GWR One of the earliest books to survey the British railway scene was Francis Whishaw’s “The Railways of Great Britain and Ireland” of which the 2nd edition, with additional plates, was published 1842. He wrote “THE Great Western Railway is by far the most gigantic work of the kind, not only in Great Britain, not only in Europe, but, we venture to say, in the whole world. Mr. Brunel, not satisfied with the beaten track pursued by those who had gone before him, determined on carrying out this important work on entirely new principles; and, notwithstanding the numerous adversaries he has had to contend with from every quarter, has thus far been eminently successful in his favourite project, and will, no doubt, ere another summer shall have passed away, pronounce this mighty work to be completed throughout.” I should add, though, that Whishaw did go on to criticise the great increase in the costs incurred, over the original Parliamentary estimate … something with which we are all too familiar! Concerning locomotives, Whishaw left us with a puzzle, when he wrote :“we have ... classified these machines according to their magnitude, and the gauge of way to which they severally belong. Thus the six-wheel engines for the seven-feet gauge, as those on the Great Western Railway, belong to class A ; ...An engine belonging to class A is shewn in elevation in Plate 1, the frontispiece. and sections and details of an engine belonging to this class are exhibited in Plates 7, 8, and 9.” Whereas Plate 1 shows a locomotive of the ‘Firefly’ class, the engine shown in Plates 7, 8, and 9 does not correspond to any engine known to have worked on the GWR!: Whishaw Plate 7 Whishaw Plate 8 Whishaw does not specifically state that this is a GWR engine, although that assumption has been made by many later writers and is reasonable, considering that no other British railway used a 7 foot gauge.. The image has also sometimes been referred to as being a member of the ‘Firefly’ class, which it superficially resembles, at first glance. I have also noticed that there are many similarities between these drawings and the example of Stephenson’s ‘Patentee’ engine, illustrated in Tredgold’s ‘The Steam Engine, Vol II’, Plate LXXXXIX (99), published 1838. To demonstrate this, I overlaid the two drawings to the same scale, as shown below: Comparison between Whishaw’s Plate 7 and Stephenson’s ‘Patentee’ Creating a 3D Model I decided to create a 3D model based on Whishaw Plates 7 and 8, shown above. As usual, I imported the two images as ‘canvases’ into ‘Fusion 360’. I used the various sketching tools in this software to create drawings, which I could then extrude to create the main components of the engine. I also copied details of the frames and axle guides from the drawing of the ‘Patentee’ engine in Tredgold’s book.. Examples of Components extruded from Whishaw plates Once I had extruded all the necessary components, including use of the ‘revolve tool’ for the chimney, safety valve, and manhole cover, I assembled them together, within the Fusion 360 software, and created a ‘rendered’ 3D image: My 3D model created from Plates in Whishaw. Comparing Models When viewing the images of the Whishaw engine in isolation, it is not difficult to conclude that this image has similarities with the GWR ‘Firefly’ class. That idea is quickly disposed of, however, when I bring together the above model with the model of ‘Argus’, a member of the Firefly-class that I created in 2021.. Note that both these models were created to the scales indicated on the original drawings. My 3D models of the Whishaw engine and Firefly-class ‘Argus’ brought together Once the two models are placed together, the profound differences between their overall dimensions is immediately apparent! Notice too, the much lighter frames and smaller driving wheels of Whishaw’s engine. Similar Engines There was a Stephenson 2-2-2 of the ‘Patentee’ type, named ‘Harvey Combe’, which was built n 1835 and was used by Messrs. Cubitt, the contractors, during construction of the London and Birmingham Railway near Berkhampstead. The scene was captured by the artist J.C.Bourne, as shown above in my header image: According to an article in ‘The Engineer’ by J.G.H. Warren, dated 24th Sep.,1926, Nicholas Wood, in a “Report to the Directors of the Great Western Railway,” December 10th, 1838, gave results of experiments on the ‘Harvey Combe’ of the London and Birmingham Railway, to compare with contemporary experiments with the North Star of the Great Western Railway. I have not read Wood’s report in full but it suggests the possibility, at least, that similar engines might have been used by contractors engaged in construction of the GWR. It does seem to me that an engine similar to that shown in Whishaw would have been far more suitable for that task than the large-wheeled engines specified by Brunel, as the initial engines for the GWR. Perhaps, then, the engine shown in Whishaw’s book represents a ‘missing link’ between the engines built by Stephenson for the London and Birmingham railway and an engine or engines used during the construction of the broad gauge GWR? Mike

The economics were very different - in general, labour was cheap. High grade steels for tools and the like were extremely expensive. Holes were usually punched rather than drilled. It seems almost incredible to us that all those curved frames and cut-outs were done by hand! Re-working them by hand was much cheaper than buying new materials.

Back in 2014, I started a thread about these early absorbed engines. Sadly it has now been archived and I cannot restore the images that were lost in the 'great extinction'. There was a link that may be of interest: "I found that there are extensive records of all the locomotives built by the Vulcan foundry on the web at http://www.enuii.org/vulcan_foundry/ These records includes lists of locomotives deliveries by years, in which the S&H engines appear. According to Ahrons, one of these engines could still be seen "lying in a heap of scrap behind Swindon Works in 1886". "Some of these early engines survived well into the 20th century, usually after having been re-built several times. The last engine from the OW&W seems to have been around until 1921, by which time it had acquired a more conventional GWR appearance, as 0-6-0 No.58." At the time, I felt that trying to model one of these engines was beyond my ability but they may now go onto my list for 3D printing! Mike

The tangles continue ... just as I had decided that Lane's visual interpretation was more 'correct', I came across a drawing signed by Robert Stephenson of an un-named engine, dated June 12th, 1840. This has rather wide barrelled safety-valve casings that I had thought looked 'un-realistic'.on the Bird drawing of 'Evening Star'. There are so many variations in these early engines that I doubt whether we can ever be sure about the appearance of an individual engine. Drawing signed Robert Stephenson, June 12th, 1840 This drawing shows several interesting features, including the full-elliptic springs on the carrying wheels and the internal steam circuit. Also, the water feed loops back to the side of the firebox. Mike

I'm sure they would have painted your carriages very nicely! Mike

When I was in China for the solar eclipse in 2009, the TV vans were marked as shown below: Mike