Thomas Telford
I asked David why the cab sides were rivetted together but he did not know why. The oscillating Thomas Telford has a formed cab with no rivets on the sides. As has been proven on this & other Forums/Groups looks are very important to potential sales, and personally I feel all those extra rivets has made this version look even less appealing.
By the way apparently only 4 oscillating Thomas Telfords (including my unassembled version) were sold. David said he stopped them making any more so that they could focus on the piston valve version.
Mark III
This looks nice in the blue paint scheme, which was adopted as a result of a poll on their Facebook page.
I asked David if it had a continuous steam pipe through the lubricator, but as he did not know I asked if I could check it out. Unscrewing the filler plug proved there was no pipe visible through the hole, and while Doug tried to engage his Torch app on his phone I could clearly see the outlet steam pipe was resting against the side of the lubricator just below the filler plug bushing.
David asked if this was a problem, and Doug & I explained that you really needed a continuous steam pipe with a calibrated hole so that the oil was used at the correct rate - 0.5mm for 460 steam oil. David replied that they had a lot of these lubricators to use up - as I recall they made 200 in anticipation of the 2013 Thomas Telford sales.
Saddle Tank 2015
Nice to see that the Saddle Tank has slightly raised edges to the cutouts around the boiler fittings and at least the black paint scheme hids those rivets better.
Pity about the box lubricator, with this one still having the filler plug protruding out the cabside (to balance that view worth pointing out that the recent limited batch production of the Roundhouse Stanley Tram is equally spoilt by the lubricator drain plug sticking out the tram bodywork).
Apparently they only had one Thomas Telford prepared for the Peterborough show so Tag Gorton's review model was not handed over at the Show as originally planned.
Also on their stand was a Mark II Brunel, several of the rolling stock items and an SP8 beam engine.
Chris Cairns
