Here is information about my interest in the Britannia locomotive.

The Britannia was the last steam passenger  locomotive built in England for general use through out the British Railway system. Interest in this engine has sort of crept up on me during the years.

It all started when my son Tim was bone in 1968. Soon after this I bought him an N gauge train set. Well I suppose he was much too young at about three months but what does a brand new father know. It looked good and I was enjoying my self. Before he could make much use of it we were sent of to America for two and a half years that ended in us moving for good. So the train set remained boxed for about 16 years.

In about 1986 my company decided that we needed to take control of our own pension money. Rather than just take the money and buy some shares I decided to invest in a live steam loco that I had seen in a magazine. Well we had to drive to close to San Francisco to get the thing. When I got it home I found it was beautiful. Then I remember the N gauge set that had been boxed all this time. When I opened it again I found that they were both models of the Britannia. One in N gauge and the new one in 3 1/2 inch gauge.

I am now building a 5" gauge live steam model of the Britannia. As it takes up to 20,000 hours to do this from scratch and lots of skills that I don't have I have bought a kit from Winson Model Technology.

The kit comes in 18 monthly installments and I entend to add pictures of the progress.

 

Pump detail.

Here are some more pictures of the Winson Britannia kits 1 -11. The kits have been put together but most of the painting has not been done yet.

Here are some pictures of a steam up test.