Cumberland Model Engineering

Mike Pavie Locomotives (under construction)

Mike Pavie started his first locomotive, an LBSC small boilered Tich, in 1968 when he was just 13 years old. While being far from perfect, it did work and was the start of a lifelong passion for miniature locomotives. Mike writes, "I can clearly remember the looks on the other lads faces at the interview for an aircraft engineering apprenticeship at British European Airways in 1971. When we were asked to bring something that we had made, most people had a coat hook or screwdriver all polished for presentation. On reflection a 3˝ inch gauge steam loco was perhaps a little flash!"

Mike has built a total of twenty passenger hauling live steamers since then, culminating in two Welsh narrow gauge locos, a USA standard 4-4-0, an LMS Royal Scot, and a GWR King (all in 7Ľ inch gauge). For a change he also built a 4 inch scale Foster agricultural engine. All these models were sold to fund the startup of his own engineering business on leaving British Airways after 30 years service.

His aim is to build ten locomotives every three years. So far his Gauge 3 models have ranged from various pacific types (Gresley A4 and A3, Peppercorn A1, Britannias, Duke of Gloucester), to the Riddles 9F and even lowly Hunslets. A small deposit will secure the engine of your choice for the future! Mike may be contacted at mike@pavie.plus.com

Mike's Workshop

Mike has his workshop in a detached double garage next door to his home (a deconsecrated Methodist chapel, pictured at right). The garage is divided into two halves, one half being the workshop proper (heated for those -5° C winters), the other half housing his material stores and guillotine. Surprisingly, the machine tools which call Mike's workshop home are all manual machines. He summarizes his equipment:

(1) Myford 254s high speed centre lathe ,with tapered roller bearings, a geared headstock and screw-cutting gearbox with hardened bed and 10 inch swing. (2) Senior universal milling machine: The mill has a 3 phase motor powered from a static inverter which gives variable frequency 3 phase from domestic single phase supply, giving infinite speed control. (3) Meddings drill press (4) Off hand bench grinder (5) Tip lap cutter grinder for sharpening end mills (6) Metal cutting bandsaw with 10 inch throat (7) Edwards guillotine 1 meter X 16 gage swing (8) 2 sets bench rolls (9) Brake press and small guillotine combined (10) 10 cu. ft. / min. compressor (11) plus all the usual hand tools and tooling for the machines.

Construction Photographs

Considering that Mike has not entered the age of CAD and CNC machining, it is remarkable just how prolific he is in building scale live steam locomotives in Gauge 3. For instance, Mike spent better than three weeks just machining sixty investment cast iron drivers along with ninety wheels for lead, trailing, and tender trucks (pictured at the right above). That's enough wheels and drivers to build ten locomotive chassis and seven tenders. Mike's wheels, I should add, are cast by a fellow Brit: Mr. Mark Wood. You can view his impressive line of driver and wheelset castings here.

When Mike builds a tender, he does so several tenders at a time. Here are a few pics of his work from the spring of 2009:

Mike use 2mm steel bar stock for his locomotive and tender plate frames. Here are some pics of the main frames and bogies for four LMS Duchess class 4-6-2s:

Some of Mike's most recent projects are represented below: From left to right (1) Britannia class 4-6-2 chassis (2) Britannia #70046 Anzac (3) Bulleid Rebuilt Merchant Navy class 4-6-2 Orient Line (4) Peppercorn A1 class 4-6-2 Alcazar (5) Gresley A3 class 4-6-2 Flying Scotsman (6) Great Western Railway Hall class 4-6-0 Burton Agnes Hall (7) A lineup of several Britannias, Duke of Gloucesters, rebuilt Merchant Navies & Halls (8) a grab bag of boilers for the same.

Completed Locomotives

The first Gauge 3 live steamer which Mike built was an LMS Patriot class 4-6-0. Since that time he has had a prodigious output of locomotives. I seriously doubt that anyone in either the UK or North America has built as many, at least not since the days of commercial builders such as Basset-Lowke. Mike writing for the model press about 2006, describes how his locomotives differ from that Basset-Lowke and other venerable manufactures:

In the early part of the last century, Gauge 3 garden railways were predominantly supported by Bing, Bassett Lowke, Carette and Jubb. These fairly basic spirit fired locomotives were ideal for gauge 3. They would run sedately with a few coaches without requiring too much attention. In the early 1920’s a young man called Lillian Lawrence began to modify these commercial locomotives producing much more powerful machines which could pull an adult along. Ultimately Mr Lawrence began to write for many model magazines under the pen name L.B.S.C. His brilliant designs transformed 2 ˝ gauge locomotives from weak commercial toys to powerful coal fired passenger haulers.

However, you don’t get ought for nought , and LBSC locomotives slowly grew in size to provide the power, and scale dimensions became of secondary importance. This effectively destroyed the interest in gauge 3 scenic railways for many years until the gauge 3 society was formed in 1990 to rekindle the enthusiasm.

When I joined the society, most of the locomotives running were L.B.S.C designed passenger haulers hauling a train of several coaches.( a much lighter duty than they were intended for ! ) This is not the ideal motive power due to their excess weight and power being unsuitable for the scale track.

I was asked to build a loco for one of the members and I decided that a locomotive design pitched somewhere between the old commercial designs and the L.B.S.C passenger haulers was required. My locomotives feature the adequate bearing areas found in the passenger haulers combined with lighter weight, (closer to scale) framing and reduced cylinder bores, ports and passage ways.The copper coal fired boilers are fitted with screw down regulators to provide fine control and reduced size axle pumps, to reflect the lower steam consumption of the smaller cylinders. This first locomotive, a LMS Patriot was very successful and has led to 18 – 20 subsequent engines, each one fine tuning the requirements a little further and being slightly more detailed than its predecessor. With the exception of the gas fired A4’s they are all coal fired.

Big Four Era British 4-6-2s
(Prototype Photos at Right)

Mike has built several examples of British mainline 4-6-2s, both from the halcyon days of the the "Big Four" railways as well as post-nationalization British Railways standard designs. From the famous LNER stable of locomotives, Mike has built several examples of the world-famous Gresley A3 class (most prominenly represented by Flying Scotsman of course), as well as the inverted bathtub streamlined A4 and the Peppercorn A1 (designed by a successor to Sir Nigel Gresley). He has also built examples of the Southern Railway (of England) rebuilt Merchant Navy class, orginally designed by Sir Oliver Bulleid. Mike writes about his A3 models:

My recent batch of LNER locomotives consisted of 3 Gresley A3’s and a Peppercorn A1. The engines are built to a scale of 17/32 in to 1foot, which is true scale for 2 ˝ inch gauge.
These are 3 cylinder machines 11/16inch bore x 1 1/8 in stroke. The A3’s being fitted with Gresley/Holcroft conjugated valve gear for the inside cylinder and Walschearts gear outside.
The Peppercorn engine has Walschearts gear outside and the inside cylinder has slip eccentric gear in order to reduce the number of inaccessible working parts inside the frames. Cylinder lubrication is taken care of using a simple displacement lubricator fitted behind the front buffer beam. The forward footplate lifts off to facilitate oil servicing.

The all silver soldered coal fired boilers are made from 1/16 thick copper and fitted with 8 x 3/8inch diameter fire tubes and 1 x 3/4inch diameter flue which houses the super-heater element. They work at 80psi and were hydraulically tested to 160psi. The grate sections can be tipped up to clear the residue after a run.

Boiler feed is by axle driven pump 3/8inch stroke and 3/8inch bore. A screw down bypass valve on the footplate controls the feed rate. A tender hand pump is also fitted to enable the boiler to be filled prior to steaming. All the valve gear and coupling/connecting rods are machined from mild steel and fitted with bronze bushes. The plate work is constructed from 20swg brass and designed in sub-assemblies which enables the engine to be dismantled for maintenance in a relatively short time without damaging the paintwork. These engines were built from the works general arrangement drawings together with reference to photographs, no other drawings were required. I obtained the drawings from the National Railway Museum archive.

I should mention that the superb paint job on these models is nothing to do with me ! Les Richards in the Isle of Wight paints all my models.

So far, only one A3 has been steamed. I was very pleased with the performance, it ran quietly with 6 coaches, attention to the fire only being required every 15 minutes. On subsequent runs we will increase the coach load to 12. This will make a train almost 40feet long, incredibly realistic as it glides past.

With the A3’s project behind me I recently designed and built a Gauge 3 Hunslet Austerity 0-6-0 saddle tank for “Stuart “ models of Guernsey. This loco will eventually be produced and marketed as a kit similar to Aster products. The production is eagerly awaited by gauge 3 members, many of whom have indicated they would like a Hunslet kit themselves.

British Railways Standard Designs
(Prototype Photos at Right)

Mike continues his narrative:

I am currently building 8 locomotives , 2 Britannia’s, 2 Duke of Gloucesters, 2 Rebuilt Merchant Navy’s and 2 Modified Halls. The Halls are the next kit prototype for Stuart Models.

My future order book is filling up and the next build will be predominately smaller locos, including a LNER N2 tank and a LNWR coal engine.

Gauge 3 has a lot to offer , it is the largest scale scenic garden railway and the degree of realism is superb , locos have exhaust beats like the real ones and the trains seem to rattle by for ages. This , together with the friendliest bunch of blokes you could hope to meet makes for a great day out.

I am writing this 3 years after the foregoing and should report that the current batch of locos does contain the N2 tank and 2 LNWR locos ,a Cauliflower and a Watford tank. Also 4 LMS Duchess pacifics ,2 LNER V2 2-6-2’s and a Southern West Country pacific; so much for small engines !!

A Sampling Of Mike's Completed Models: