Stephen & Duncan. I very much appreciate your replies and sorry that I could not reply earlier.  I was aware of Stephen’s superb (an under statement) JENNIFER ANN and had seen the video of the 1st steaming but could not find any online ref as to whether your valve gear for this was exactly to the Ruston drawings.  I take it that no changes were made?

I wish that I could get the hang of the various simulations to do the checking work for myself.  I have Hall’s, Ashton’s and Wallace’s and many years ago looked at Dockstader but sooner or later always seem to come up with an impenetrable stop.  Using Hall’s I currently get a “SQRT:DOMAIN error” error message followed by “Invalid floating point operation” when I attempt to get results after inserting the various dimensions.

With Stephen’s fine example I shall push ahead anyway, although if my ELIDIR also takes 35 years I shall be 118 before it is finished!

Steve,

Thank you very much indeed for the video link.  It is so re-assuring to see such a fine locomotive gliding along with no side to side wobble which shows how good the valve timing, setting and construction is.  Also most grateful for the ME article references.  A certain well known law dictated that last year I gave away about 60 years of Model Engineers which included your 2023 splendid series of articles containg inter alia the account of the building of JENNIFER ANN.

Fortunately (I hope) I know where my collection went to and should be able to borrow back the appropriate copies to scan.

Many thanks again.

John