My Mistake

I hope she doesn't read this forum!

It is absolutely correct that he was re-using parts from other designs. This was both normal and preferred practice at the time when it would have been considered showing off to make 6 different designs for the same thing. In those days too shops only had one design of product on the shelf and only 3 varieties of soup (no shop had 57 before you ask). It was true in full size - GWR standardised boilers and fitting, and I have owned MG, mini, lanrover, range rover all using the same headlights.

. . . .and some of that soup was beans.

But seriously I do hope that one thing will emerge from tisi project and that is a clearer understanding of the man by what his designs, their proliferation, variety, scope and transition over time say about him. I have jsut spent 18 months or so building George Thomas workshop equipment (a much, much smaller project than this) and I feel I kind of know him much better just by the doing of it.

Enjoy the journey Dean, I hope it surprises you in ways you hadn't considered.

regards Martin

Dave,

Curiously she is very, very sweet. She's the most affectionate, maternal, obese example of an Staffordshire Bulldog I have ever seen (technically the breed is called the American Bully, but bully is far from their nature, they are actually quite placid and gentle by nature) although her and the other dog are more akin to an old married couple- she gives him grief and he takes it all in stride.



Gentle giants by nature truly, that's my grand nephew and my female, Daisy.
She weighs around 100 pounds- the male is around 130.

Of course, there is this one too, quite frankly the epitome of what a dog should be- loyal, affectionate, noble.
Dumb as a spanner though.

Back to the trains:

IF SOMEONE HAS DUCHESS OF SWINDON DRAWINGS I WILL HORRIBLY DEGRADE MYSELF FOR COPIES.

Or pay.

One thing is for sure though, the first designs that I will be doing in large numbers will be the 2.5" gauge ones. Mostly because I have already drawn a large number of common parts for them. With one locomotive in particular I am running into a debacle that I would like your input on:

The Pixie.
As designed by Curly it has a small spirit tank in the rear of the locomotive- since it was meant for children the notion of carrying around a lot of fuel was ruled out since children likely weren't going to go on long rides on it anyhow.

Part of me is tempted to do something different, give it the same burner as Rose and tender parts and treat it more like a true miniature locomotive rather than a children's toy. Albeit, one that has oscillating cylinders.

I have heard mention of how Curly was terrible about people being critical of his work- and I do have a theory on why that is:

Literally it was his life. He had devoted himself entirely to this design and construction of miniature locomotives since he was a child, this was his love, passion, his everything- besides Mabel. For all intents and purposes it could be argued that Curly designed his locomotives off of what people were asking for- rather than just what he wanted- more often than not.

I think that because of the fact that he was basically doing what the people asked him for combined with the massive place in his life that these locomotives occupied, when people were critical of his work it was a very personal matter for him. Right or wrong, I can understand to a degree why that would likely be the reason he felt that way about people being critical of his work.

Another thing too, I don't think that Curly was the sort to care about fine scale work.
I view his locomotives as being more impressionistic to a degree- not in the sense that the dimensions were wrong or not to scale, but rather Curly wasn't interested in making sure that every last little blob and bit on the large locomotive was accounted for on the smaller version he designed. He made this clear in his reference to rivets as "pimples" and of course there were the "spoke counters" et al.

Curly cared about how they ran, about the thrill and mystique of steam. Something that in this era where I am seeing more and more electric models pop up (especially here in the US) I can appreciate very much.

On a parting note, here is a photo of me with the first steam locomotive I ever ran, also crashed, the Mesa Grande Western R.R. Consolidation #268. I'm the shorter person, the gentleman standing next to me is Mike Massee of Live Steam magazine.

"IF SOMEONE HAS DUCHESS OF SWINDON DRAWINGS I WILL HORRIBLY DEGRADE MYSELF FOR COPIES."

That sentence takes on a very different meaning if you take it out of its model engineering context...

I may have one of her in her nightie.............

You won at the internet for the day sir.