words by Bob Frost.

The model was acquired following a filming commission at Salisbury during 1989. The film called 'Salisbury Steam Finale' was made at the request of Gerald Daniels, then Area Manager of British Rail, Salisbury, responsible for running some of the steam hauled specials at that time.

The film featured West Country Class locomotive 'City of Wells' running between Salisbury and Yeovil, and it was when the film was being shown at Waterloo that my colleague David Doré, came into contact with Traction Inspector Nigel Buck, who mentioned he had a 5" gauge unfinished rebuilt Merchant Navy loco that he was thinking of selling. David, knowing that I was interested in getting hold of something like that put me in touch with Nigel, and soon after I became the owner of an unfinished Merchant Navy locomotive, although without a tender.

On examination I found the model was fairly well seized, I couldn't move the wheels at all and began a certain amount of dismantling, removing the boiler from the frames, and releasing the pistons and piston valves from the cylinders in order to free up the cast iron rings. However as I worked on the model, the more I realized how accurately it had been built, and felt the completion of this loco would have to be by someone with more skill than I.   My experience with model engineering at that time had only been to build a 3½" Black 5 "Doris" and even with this I had a lot of help with wheels and quartering, the frames already being cut.   It's boiler was built by Fred Stone, one of the last built by Fred before he retired, and remains the best bit of the loco.

Although I didn't know him at the time, the original builder of the Merchant Navy was Kevan Ayling, perhaps better known for his magnificent 5" gauge Bulleid 'Leader'.   I have since met Kevan and he explained that he built the model from the Brighton works drawings for the full size rebuilds, and just looking under the loco at the middle engine and leaf springs you can see it is a work of high standard.   Kevan also built the boiler and just like the full size Bulleid boilers it is a prolific steam generator and does keep you busy with the shovel.

It seems a pity that Kevan didn't finish the loco but so far as I understand, he wanted to build something unique and once the Ariel drawings were released for a model of a Merchant Navy, Kevan lost the interest and let Nigel take the engine over. I think, like me, Nigel realised what a big job it would have been to finish and decided not to keep it.

At least Kevan is safe in the knowledge that I reckon it would be very unlikely that anyone will produce some drawings for the Leader let alone build one. On second thoughts I'm probably wrong there, someone will come up with a 7¼ version sooner or later.

I put feelers out for someone to finish the loco and understandably there was not a lot of response. Taking over someone else's work is often difficult, but taking over a three cylinder Merchant Navy built to the works drawings needed someone special. One of the people I approached was Tony Crowhurst of Hythe, but he explained that his work was geared more to bigger locos such as the Romney 15" gauge, however Tony went on to recommend Richard Downs of Hythe, and so it was Richard that took over the job. Richard was also responsible for overseeing a young engineer, I believe his name was James, to build the tender and an excellent job it turned out. I remember Richard asked me at the time if I wanted to sit on the tender for ground level driving, that they should make a beefed up version. I told them this was not necessary which was a bad decision as many 5" gauge locos now days are going down on the ground level quite successfully.

It was sometime before I got the Merchant Navy back from Richard, and in the meantime it had been decided to name the locomotive 'Cunard White Star'.   Actually it nearly was named 'Elders Fyffes', as at the time we were doing work for a company that used to bring in Fyffes banana films.

It was from their representative I learnt that Fyffes still had the original 'Elders Fyffes' name plates from the full size locomotive named after their company.

One of the things that Richard Downs suggested I did was to join The Romney Marsh Model Engineering Society as he said it would be easier to get the boiler tested locally and I would have somewhere to run the engine when completed. Indeed when the time came they made me very welcome and I have stayed a member ever since.

On the final collection of the loco I was delighted, the engine was finished and boiler tested and Richard had given the loco and tender a first class paint job.

Since then I have done a fair amount of smaller work on the engine like fitting a PTFE slider valve regulator, new valve bobbins with PTFE rings (outside cylinders only) and Clupet rings from Alan Smith of Cumbria for the three pistons. I also was unhappy at the difficulty in getting oil into the middle big end so I fitted an oil cup to the top of the big end housing and machined a small groove on the inside of the main bearing caps and the oil cup can now be filled via a small spring ball valve at the bottom of the big end.

Three years ago I had a failure on the superheater element when a rivet popped out of the spearhead. This was quite a surprise as the boiler had been hydraulically tested only a month or so before, and the superheater was included in the pressure test as I blank the boiler at the dry end of the superheater. Anyway as the element had to come out I fitted back a stainless radiant type element resulting in possibly a small improvement in steam generation.

So there it is, and now I am getting old I find it more difficult to reach the controls of the loco, what a pity I didn't think of this when James built the tender. I would have asked him to build the shorter 5000 gallon version.

Bob Frost     April 2007