5" Meter Maid 0-6-0

It would seem that "Metre Maid" is a stretched version of the 0-4-0 "Sweet Pea" design described, I believe, in "Engineering in Miniature" maybe 20 years ago.

Both locomotives are narrow gauge outline; many builders seem to have taken to building in their own favourite features. As a result, no two are quite the same it seems but certainly, the "Sweet Pea" would appear to be a popular and successful design. The addition of another axle as in "Metre Maid" is hardly likely to compromise that.

The DIY approach.

As an estimate, it takes about 3,500 hours to build a live steam locomotive. The gauge of the model doesn't vary the time much, bigger bits take a little longer, smaller are more fiddly, it evens out. Good skill levels and equipment can reduce the time, it can and has been done with very limited facilities it just takes more time and ingenuity.

Equipment: It is all too easy to spend £10K on machinery and as much again on tooling but wonderful work has been achieved on just a small lathe of the Myford type, just add more time.

Is it worth it? Darned right it is!

Those of us of a certain age will remember the furore over the "Appleby Boy" who exhibited an Allchin traction engine at the Model Engineer Exhibition back in the '50's.

There was a good deal of really quite undignified and ill natured comment over his claim that he had built it in a year. His is response to his critics was simple, he would build a 3½" Britannia for the next year's show.

And at the following year's exhibition there it was albeit unpainted, he explained that this omission was down to including rather more detail on his model than the LBSC design that he had used.

So it can be done in a relatively short time as long as you don't have to do all that boring old day to day stuff like cooking, cleaning, washing, shopping, etc., teenagers (of all ages) living at home don't know they've been born!).