Spirit firing and 3.25” gauge.

Hello,

I recently acquired this locomotive, and it has sparked my interest in large scale scenic railways. It appears to be The Model Engineer prize winning design from 1904 by Henry Greenly. I found a page in a reprinted Bassett-Lowke catalogue giving details of castings available:

It was described during the first months of 1904, in those days the M.E. was in the habit of giving away a coloured general arrangement drawing with the first issue of each volume

It’s a large lump, the same length as an LMS 3F tank engine in 3.5” gauge, and a bit heavier. It doesn’t appear to have been finished (there’s no blower or feed pump), but it has clearly run. The first job will be to take the wheel sets out to fix the wheels onto the axles properly, they are all loose. As it will be of limited steaming capacity, I intend to keep it as 3.25” gauge and spirit fired, and perhaps make some temporary track to try it out

My question is how many engines built in this gauge still survive? I expect a good proportion were rebuilt and regauged to make them more useful but some must be hiding in their original form, a century after the fashion for such large scenic railways started to die

Edward

Hi

3 1/4 gauge does come up at model auctions some times, last year a greenly electric loco from 1905 came up at my local auction house. I have two midland bogie carrages and a 5 plank open wagon.

Paul