I recently aquired a Bassett Lowke 3/4 scale traction engine. Always hankered after one having seen them listed for £136 fully built in a 1959 B-L catalogue. I think mine was sold by a company called Steam Age as a kit in the 1980s and the design seems to have been value engineered in some aspects compared with the 1950s versions.

Anyway, having redrilled the holes in the regulator spindle so that steam can actually get through to the cylinder, and having shortened the valve so that it doesn’t cover all three steam ports, I managed to get it to run bacwards and forwards on compressed air. Not so well on steam though, hence this post. I wondered if anyone has experience of these engines and knows the secret to getting them to run.

Having filled the displacement lubricator with steam oil and the fuel tank with meths, I fill the boiler with boiling water from a kettle and poke my gas lighter under the burners, hoping all four will light. And open the smoke box door, as per the instructions. The problem is the lack of steam pressure. The boiler has five small diameter tubes running underneath longitudinally and connecting the front and lower rear of the boiler, that the burner heats. I don’t know if this is some kind of flash steam system, but whatever it is, it doesnt seem to work on mine. I tried shortening the air vent tube in the fuel tank to raise the level of meths in the burner reservoir, but still no steam and burning meths spilling if I lift the rear of the engine.

I think not being able to see the burners is a big design flaw and I am pondering drilling sight holes in the horn plates. But what is the reason for the tubes under the boiler and does modern meths just not have the heat content of 1950s stuff? All suggestions welcome!