This what else I added to the roster. I got my foot in two canoes, and try to keep the Tyco disease under control, hah, hah. But my first love has always been British OO, and now they are doing more and more in HO. While identical in gauge, the OO stuff is just a wee bit more chunky owing to the fact that they made it a wee bit bigger to better fit in the motor. The motors got smaller, but OO had already chummed the British waters. Americans abandoned OO back in the '50's PDQ in favor of more slender, accurate models.
First gen steam has always been a fascination. They had to invent almost everything out of ingots and hand planed wood, as very little was commercially available, except for pressure gauge or a rivet. This is an HO model of the Lion, as she appeared restored for a 1930 expo in England. In her former life, she came right on the heels of the famous Rocket.
This guy Stephenson, and his son, Robert, Jr., were two of the most brilliant minds of the age. Not only did they have the ability to take raw ore and build a functional, useful machine, but the elder Stephenson had an astonishing insight into the fluid dynamics of gases. He invented, and tested first hand, a coal miner's lantern that would not ignite lethal underground gas leaks by virtue of the manner in which it drew in atmospheric air, and explosive methane. He later applied the same technological brilliance to boiler flues of his steam locomotives, a method that was
never improved upon for the entire life of steam locomotives thereafter. Moreover, the elder Stephenson had something like a third grade education. He was not connected to high society, and in fact came from very humble beginnings. But he was so incredibly capable and insightful, that he leap frogged into the ranks of Newton or Einstein, in my estimation. He melded theoretical science and mechanical engineering into a force that changed the world. And he could barely write his own name.
Sr. and Jr. worked in a close knit tandem. By the time Jr. came into being, Sr. was doing pretty good as a stationary steam engine (pumps, mostly, used to drain ground water out of deep coal mines, using vacuum type steam engines). So, he made darn sure Jr. got a very strong education, and I recall some degree that was as close as one could get in mechanical engineering, in the early 19th century.
In doing so, Sr. was able to communicate his concepts, which were as esoteric as Quantum Physics are today, to his son, who was thus able to draw plans and explain what his Dad was saying to the rest of the scientific community. Without that vital mouthpiece, it is possible that Sr. would never have got the Rocket out of his brain and onto real iron rails pulling real carriages real fast (27 MPH- blindingly fast for the time). Genius that he was, he had no ability to write out complex formulas of gas physics much less technical specifications. His thick Cockney accent was difficult to understand, as it was sort of a patoise of the lower classes. If not for his son, Sr. would have stayed as a very competent, but unknown, stationary mechanical foreman.
Just another curious tidbit, George Sr. outlived his first two wives, and once famous as an inventor of the modern railway, married a young hottie many years his junior, who joined him on the foot plate for many of those early runs. Probably on the Lion...stay tuned for that one. She was an actress, which was, in Victorian England, considered a job of ill repute.
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Haven't had a chance to unwrap her and break her in yet. She been sitting on a shelf for several weeks. Maybe Monday? Maybe not? Hopefully before I kick the damned bucket.
