Many Thanks for the history, certainly makes interesting reading, and has covered pretty much everything I asked!TommyDodd:52731 wrote:Not quite in the beginning, there was a newsagent called Tom Cooper who got into garden railways. He put an LGB layout in his shop window and started selling a few bits, including steam locos from a German firm called Beck- which unlike traditional British steam locos ran on this strange stuff called gas.
Eventually, he started to be a bit more ambitious, modifying the Beck locos to look more British and thus was born the Merlin Locomotive Works. Eventually he outgrew the Beck-based designs and started making his own, at a factory on the banks of the Banwy in Llanfair. Unfortunately he was a better hobby visionary than businessman. Merlin fell on hard times, and the creditors had him removed and the company put in charge of its former accountant. Fortunately this worthy knew lots about numbers and money. Unfortunately she knew little about small locomotives. Fortunately she cleverly found ways to save the company money. Unfortunately one of these was getting rid of some senior engineering staff. Fortunately costs went down. Unfortunately so did sales as quality declined. Fortunately the ex-engineer went on to found his own company which went on to achieve great things as Pearse Engineering. Unfortunately Merlin went under and disappeared.
Meanwhile, undaunted, Tom Cooper set up another Garden Railway business, Steamlines Models and Publications. This offered an irregular magazine "steamlines" (later to become Garden Railway World before being swallowed by GR), and some products- most of which were made by other people like the Motor Mule (Roger Hine/Friog) and Mr Merlin's Pooter (a Roundhouse special with modified bodywork).
At heart Tom was a pioneer, and when the 16mm market got crowded he looked for another unique approach. Buying an expensive CNC machining centre, he came up with a very unusual design of live steam model that featured a chassis chewed out of a solid metal block in one piece. Some designs were for 16mm and some for 22.5mm/ft (7/8" before it took off). There were British Bagnalls, generic American machines (hence the new company name) and the European-style beastie you've acquired. I don't think many were made before poor health overtook Mr Cooper and the business faded away.
On the plus side, you've got a machine which is rare if not unique, and very solid thanks to its idiosnycratic construction. OTOH, try not to break anything as finding spares will definitely be a big problem.
Thanks very much I will do!Crackingjob:52776 wrote:Send photo etc to Derek WIGGINS of the Heritage team at the 16mm NGM association
heritage@16mm.org.uk
I am sure he can help as he has contacts with many who built these locos
Cracking find
Crackingjob
It certainly is your old Ruby, and she certainly enjoys running round the new railwayNomis:52976 wrote:That's a really lovely model - and an unusual prototype too.
It would look perfect with a rake of small cane wagons 8)
And I think I see my (recently sold) Ruby in the background, hope it's still doing well ;)
You are correct, it was based on a Decauville Prototype, IIRC possibly the ones sent to Australia to the sugar industry.I just purchased this on ebay, and wanted to know the history behind it, as the loco itself looks more like a French Decauville than an American loco.
Thanks for your replay, more interesting info!samcevansuk:54072 wrote:You are correct, it was based on a Decauville Prototype, IIRC possibly the ones sent to Australia to the sugar industry.I just purchased this on ebay, and wanted to know the history behind it, as the loco itself looks more like a French Decauville than an American loco.
See http://www.zelmeroz.com/album_rail/qld/ ... uville.pdf
He also did a UK prototype with the CNC machine which he called after his wife, Eileen. This was based on a Barclay ?Class A? tank of which a number were built for civil engineering contractors, for 3 ft ga. Morrison and Mason of Glasgow had a number of these inc one which survived at the BAC plant at Foyers, later moved to the SRPS at Boness, and currently being restored for duty on an Irish line AFAIK. This loco, formerly M & M No 5 was built new for the Elan Valley Pipeline project and I have a photo of it and two other locos on this contract at Bucknell, Salop, where my Grandfather saw it as a boy.
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