The perfect garden centre.

[vernon]

Takes me back to my old Mamod, I wonder if thy are still made?

Shaun

Yes they certainly are still made. They have expanded the range of models with some pretty surprising sophistication - slide valves, gas firing, sleeve valves, de Winton Locomotive..

I can feel a garden railway coming on!

 

[raleighnut]

Isn't that the place where the fella started out with a Lancashire boiler to heat his greenhouses then started collecting the engines cos he'd got the steam. If I'm right he burns the waste from a nearby furniture factory in his boiler (s) instead of it going to landfill.

 

[mybike]

Yes they certainly are still made. They have expanded the range of models with some pretty surprising sophistication - slide valves, gas firing, sleeve valves, de Winton Locomotive..

I can feel a garden railway coming on!

That looks v e r y expensive.

 

[Nigel-YZ1]

Been years since I've been to Markham Grange. Never new they had steam engines!

 

[subaqua]

Sounds a bit like bressingham in Norfolk .

 

[vernon]

Sounds a bit like bressingham in Norfolk .

Bressingham is much bigger by a couple of orders of magnitude in every aspect. It would cost £30 to see the steam collection there. Markham is free and very much a hobby/amateur affair.

 

[Lullabelle]

Our local garden centre does a fantastic breakfast, their plants are ok

 

[accountantpete]

I've got one.

View attachment 87657

Me too

 

[rich p]

It truly was. I'm waiting for the British Engineerium at Hove to re-open in 2016. I'm looking forward to see how it has been redeveloped and improved. It was the bench mark of all things stationary steam engine related prior to its closure.

In a park very, very close to the Engineerium, there's a track with little steam locomotives chugging round on one Sunday a month. My grandsons absolutely adore it with wide-eyed ecstasy, but one of the guys running it says that it may die out as they're all getting on and struggle to get younger people interested.
It would be a tragedy. Albeit a mini one.

 

[vernon]

In a park very, very close to the Engineerium, there's a track with little steam locomotives chugging round on one Sunday a month. My grandsons absolutely adore it with wide-eyed ecstasy, but one of the guys running it says that it may die out as they're all getting on and struggle to get younger people interested.
It would be a tragedy. Albeit a mini one.

My offspring have had rides on that railway. The sad thing is, is that the chap is correct. Very few youngsters have the opportunity or inclination to acquire the skills needed to build miniature steam locomotives and engines. I built my first oscillating steam engine at school when I was thirteen. I was trusted to use lathes milling machines, vertical drills and the brazing hearth at that tender age. The current curriculum limitations in high schools limit kids to making tat out of plastic and wood with occasional appearances of metal with very little design and precision involved in the making process.

The model engineering, model railway and model aircraft hobbies are transforming from scratch building from raw materials and castings to ready to assemble pre-machined kits with next to no fettling needed and fairly rapid gratification.

I am saddened by the demise of the hand made model but I soldier on in my shed making stick and tissue model aircraft, and aspiring to make live steam engines again once I have time on my hands.

 

[midlife]

I think woodworking / metalworking at school is now called resistant materials ........

Shaun

 

[vernon]

I think woodworking / metalworking at school is now called resistant materials ........

Shaun

And the kids resist learning it.

 

[threebikesmcginty]

Me too

View attachment 87786

My brother, Prince Golden Bollocks, had one of those, I feckin didn't.

 

[Bazzer]

I've got one.

View attachment 87657

Me too.
Got one of each of these




The Meccano one was brilliant fun, running it with whatever wacky transport or lifting/pulling device I had created.

 

[ufkacbln]

I like the one in Titchfield

I can wait here;