Traction Engine Page

Buy the book or CD on how my Burrell "THETFORD TOWN" was made - go here

Steam cycles

An experiment ........ Using Macromedia Flash to show a moving steam cycle for the steam traction engine. Its just simple to show the relative piston and valve movements at the moment .

Traction Engines
*A description of my Burrell "Thetford Town" awarded 2nd in its class at the Midlands Model Engineering Exhibition 2003.*

Road Haulage Engines

*A description of my current project, the 6 Ton Foden steam estate tractor*

Traction Engines

This is about my Burrell showman's that was under construction. It is now finished. It was an ongoing story so if you missed earlier pages ....... Sorry! The Engine is THETFORD TOWN and built to drawings produced by Ronald H. Clark and is to a scale of 2" to the foot. Those who know their Burrell history will know that there was never an engine called Thetford Town even though that is the place of the original Works of Charles Burrell & Sons. It is nevertheless acknowledged that the design is very representative of engines of the period made by Burrell. One advantage of this engine is that it has no prototype for the judges to gauge against if entered for competition. The disadvantage is that leaves the judges to their own opinion on what is accurate or not for the period!!		The building was started in October of 1992 and estimated to last 10 years .......... it steamed for the first time in October 2002. The time was estimated ................ as a consequence of having built an 1 1/2" scale ALCHIN which took 8 years (picture below). All elapsed times of course!! *Click the thumb nail for a larger view*

		Just in case you were wondering where Thetford Town is in the United Kingdom ....... click on the name for a potted history.



*View of the completed Engine............without crane*



*........... and with crane, complete with swingletree*

*What's a swingletree? ...... its that horizontal lifting bar at the end of the wire rope. It was used for lifting the cars on and off the fairground rides amongst other things.*

Here are some of the later construction pictures

CLICK ON THE THUMBNAILS FOR A LARGER VIEW

A few finished thumbs at the bottom

	>
A view of the cross head slides complete and assembled	Forward view of the motion works	Another view of the motion works	A view of the crank and gears

	This is the engine ............. prior to intermediate roof rafter fitting

.............. and with the intermediate roof rafters fitted February 2002

	The engine without its canopy.

Brake assembly on the off side
	The lubricator with its ratchet assembly and governor assembly. Behind is the safety valve. The right hand pipe is the steam to the water lifter and chimney blast.

	The reversing lever& Sight gauge *The seat is formed from beaten brass and riveted to a spring steel curved support anchored at its far end. Quite a bouncy ride on the full size I expect!*

The tender inside view. The left hand pipe is the water pump bypass return with its valve at the floor. The steam header in the middle feeds the pressure gauge and the steam injector.

	This is the rear brake block. It is sprung against the wheel's inner rim by a spring pushing on the lower part of the bracket ...... hence it looking as if it is not radial to the rim.

	The starting handle bracket. The brass handle is the push lever for the live steam bypass valve to the LP cylinder

This is the governor incomplete ..... the centrifugal springs and ball weights are still to be fitted. Also the valve spindle which runs through the centre of the whole assembly.
	The top of the cylinder block showing governor, safety valve and lubricator. Note that this picture is earlier than the one above as the lubricator top ratchet is still on the left hand side.

The nameplate was etched and fitted into the cover plate. The depth of the lettering is 10 thou. A second one with slightly different wording is done for the other cylinder valve chest cover.

*The chimney top is from two pieces of copper. The lower is beaten in place to the concave shape and the top spun directly onto the chimney.*

	*The painted perch bracket complete with lining detail.*

*So ..... nearing completion as far as painting goes .......a general view of the re-assmbly so far. (July 2002)*

	*A view from the drivers perspective.*

*A view from the rear ........*
*Finished views post October 2002*

*The dynamo electrical panel is functional .......the meters are dummies*	*The rear view ...... complete with obligatory bucket*

	*To the left and right views of the central part of the engine*


*Under the hood ..........*	*working front road lights*	*..........and again*

That's all for now..................

Steam cycles