7 1/4 GWR Brunel 4-4-0
7 1/4” Great Western Railway 4-4-0 in very ornate lined Great Western Green livery. Surely one of the most beautifully designed engines to ever grace the drawing boards of Swindon works, the brass embellishments and huge 7ft driving wheels really make for an austentatious and elegent steam locomotive.
Finely built by a noted commercial model engineer who at the time was a Rolls Royce shop floor man. There are additional details to the standard G S Clarke design (and there are not many completed) such as scale non-return valve covers and oil pots neatly hidden within the sandboxes. The embellishments on the splasher are etched, rather than printed against the indian red framing, neatly lined out. The driving wheels are machined and hand-finished from solid steel discs as there where no castings available at the time – many others would have given up at this early stage. Even fitted to the smokebox handrail is the prototypical socket-type rather than iron-type lamp bracket. Rightly this locomotive was exhibited upon completion at the Midlands Model Engineering Exhibiton some time in the late 1990s.
Mechanical lubricator, Copper boiler with superheater operating at 90psi, steam brakes to loco and vacuum brakes for the train, tender handbrake, two live steam injectors and lots of shiny brass to polish. This is an engine equally at home on the track, as it is on display in your front room.
Description
So successful were the Armstrong “Single-wheeler” express passenger locomotives that, at the end of the 19th century, William Dean comissioned the rebuild of four lesser engines to determine whether a twin-coupled driving arrangment would be advantageous. The products were four Victorian graceful engines named after four pillars of the early GWR; 7 Armstrong, 8 Gooch, 14 Charles Saunders & 16 Brunel. Seemingly successful though they were, Churchward’s own ideas meant that these old school beautie’s would not be perpetuated. In fact the engines were latterly rebuilt with smaller wheels and tapered boilers – giving longevity and a certan brutal utilitarian look to the old timers.
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