Twin Cylinder Horizontal Steam Engine
Built by Nigel Lynn in October 2022
A modified version of a model first published as Special Instruction Leaflet № 32 in 1929, and published in a revised form by Alex Barker in 2016 as ModelPlan 226.
The Meccano Company published a series of instruction leaflets from the late 1920s featuring a selection of advanced designs, which became known as the Meccano Super Models. One of these was a model of a twin cylinder steam engine, which was a type that would have been used in a variety of applications for providing power. Such machines make very attractive and interesting Meccano models from both a constructing and operating perspective.
Alex Barker produced a new design for the model in 2016 which added a control room and some other details, but also used more recent parts as some from the original plan are now obsolete and hard to find.
My version of the model has reinstated some of the features of the original and incorporates several further refinements, most obviously the addition of a chimney. The control room has been completely redesigned, and the flywheels now have a far heavier and more realistic appearance, achieved thanks to the availability of a wider range of parts. Alex Barker opted to model the cylinders in an open style so the pistons could be seen, but on this version they are almost fully enclosed, as the originals would have been.