My grandfather's steam engine

Bit of a story behind this.

When my grandfather retired in the late 60s he started a hobby. We think he was trying to get away from my grandmother, and locked himself in the garage. Well, he had to do something whilst in the garage, so he started building model steam engines.

His first model is a traction engine, which I already own, left to me in his will. His second is a tender engine (which is behind this engine), and then there is this engine.

It's an old LMS main line tank engine, with a 2-6-4 configuration for the railway enthusiasts out there.

But there is one big but - this engine was never actually made in real life. It looks exactly like one you could imagine on a railway line in the 1940s, but this model engine isn't actually modeled on anything. It's design is totally custom and was made purely for fun.

And it shows, because this is the engine that he probably steamed up the most as it was the most reliable out of all of them.

Over time, I will track down the missing two steam engines that had to be sold 20 years ago, one was a straight forward blue tank engine, and the other was a very troublesome Britannia that was his last full build.

(And yes my grandparents did have a 100foot track in the back garden, and when I visited as a child I got to drive them up and down the line.)