Welcome to the web site of the Model Steam Road Vehicle Society.
We are one of the few UK Model Engineering societies whose focus is Road Steam engines.
Please take a look around and feel free to contact us if you would like to know more.
If you would like to join us, details and the 2022 membership form can be found here
We are one of the few UK Model Engineering societies whose focus is Road Steam engines.
Please take a look around and feel free to contact us if you would like to know more.
If you would like to join us, details and the 2022 membership form can be found here
WHY DID I JOIN A MODEL STEAM ENGINE CLUB?
I grew up in a family with railway connections. My father worked on the Great Western Railway all his life and my two older brothers joined to fire and drive steam locomotives during their teen age years. Unlike their father, their careers were short lived and both brothers moved on to other employment at a time when steam was being phased out from the railways during the early 1960’s. We all shared a love of travel, including motorcycles, cars, aeroplanes and boats – the very machinery that made the adventure of travel possible. Steam engines have always been part of the England family psyche, but they have never dominated my personal interests.
So why did I join a model steam engine club? Quite simply the influence of my brother Richard, who with his capable wife Chris, were already MSRVS members. Regular visits to their house usually meant spending time in the workshop viewing the progress of the latest steam engine project. Richard has both rail and road going engines at any one time under construction. The associated drawings are often inadequate, leaving the builder to interpret the best method of manufacture and build. Sometimes the machining and fabrication would have to be redefined to suit available equipment and facilities, or just preferred methods of production. This is where I could come in and redraw some assemblies and detail out the parts for machining. There was a two stack pressure relief valve on the 3 inch Burrell tractor that would blow off at the designated pressure. The spring pressure was correct for this function, but the poppet valves would not reseat without tapping the linked bar. Richard determined that the flat seats retained the steam pressure under the faces, so the valves floated in the open position, like a hovercraft, and would not readily reseat. Solution was to redesign the valve with conical faces, like four stroke engine valves. The old machined cast valve was discarded for a new valve fabricated and assembled from machined parts. The new valve still works well many years after it was first fitted.
This is the kind of hobby that suited us both. Machining, building and operating live steam engines. The only odd feature is that I do not have steam engines myself, whereas Richard has lifetime experience of operating, machining and fabricating steam engines. My background is in project design and manufacture of industrial equipment, where I was involved sometimes with steam plant, yet apart from a Mamod steam engine, I only own an electric kettle! My main interest in my workshop is in repairing and modifying vintage model aeroplane engines and my vintage motorcycles. Yet I still have enough involvement and interest in steam to warrant my membership in the MSRVS.
Having wondered about my own circumstances and why I continue to involve myself in a hobby that has to be squeezed in among my other pastimes, I wonder how other members see their own experience in joining the MSRVS?
Derek England.
I grew up in a family with railway connections. My father worked on the Great Western Railway all his life and my two older brothers joined to fire and drive steam locomotives during their teen age years. Unlike their father, their careers were short lived and both brothers moved on to other employment at a time when steam was being phased out from the railways during the early 1960’s. We all shared a love of travel, including motorcycles, cars, aeroplanes and boats – the very machinery that made the adventure of travel possible. Steam engines have always been part of the England family psyche, but they have never dominated my personal interests.
So why did I join a model steam engine club? Quite simply the influence of my brother Richard, who with his capable wife Chris, were already MSRVS members. Regular visits to their house usually meant spending time in the workshop viewing the progress of the latest steam engine project. Richard has both rail and road going engines at any one time under construction. The associated drawings are often inadequate, leaving the builder to interpret the best method of manufacture and build. Sometimes the machining and fabrication would have to be redefined to suit available equipment and facilities, or just preferred methods of production. This is where I could come in and redraw some assemblies and detail out the parts for machining. There was a two stack pressure relief valve on the 3 inch Burrell tractor that would blow off at the designated pressure. The spring pressure was correct for this function, but the poppet valves would not reseat without tapping the linked bar. Richard determined that the flat seats retained the steam pressure under the faces, so the valves floated in the open position, like a hovercraft, and would not readily reseat. Solution was to redesign the valve with conical faces, like four stroke engine valves. The old machined cast valve was discarded for a new valve fabricated and assembled from machined parts. The new valve still works well many years after it was first fitted.
This is the kind of hobby that suited us both. Machining, building and operating live steam engines. The only odd feature is that I do not have steam engines myself, whereas Richard has lifetime experience of operating, machining and fabricating steam engines. My background is in project design and manufacture of industrial equipment, where I was involved sometimes with steam plant, yet apart from a Mamod steam engine, I only own an electric kettle! My main interest in my workshop is in repairing and modifying vintage model aeroplane engines and my vintage motorcycles. Yet I still have enough involvement and interest in steam to warrant my membership in the MSRVS.
Having wondered about my own circumstances and why I continue to involve myself in a hobby that has to be squeezed in among my other pastimes, I wonder how other members see their own experience in joining the MSRVS?
Derek England.
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