In Apr last year The 762 Club received an email from an unknown supporter of the 762 Club. John Fysh contacted us to inform that he had built a 5” gauge model of YEO and wanted to leave it to the 762 Club. John’s wife, Wendy contacted us a year or so later advising of John’s passing.
John had advised us “I started building Yeo in 2006. My intention was to build an L&B loco scaled up (at a 'convenient' ratio of 1.42 to 1) to 5 inch gauge, one fifth scale from the drawings by Les Warnett that were published in Model Engineer Magazine, in the 1980's I think, with some considerable input from my research. Additionally having seen quite a few examples in various gauges and scales mostly in Southern livery, I wanted to build something a little bit different and relating to a more specific period in time.
After much research I settled on building Yeo, as near as I could achieve, to represent the loco's configuration and livery on the day it left Manning Wardle's works for delivery to the L&B.
This proved to be a bit difficult for several reasons e.g, difficulty in finding historical data, lack of colour pictures for livery purposes and not least the fact that no-one to my knowledge has built any of the class to one fifth scale so there were no castings or any other Yeo specific items available in the model engineering trade.
I decided to keep castings to a minimum and fabricate everything else but this still meant making patterns ( I am the worlds worst woodworker) for the cylinders, pony wheels, driving wheels and horn blocks for the frames. Getting them cast was another delight.
Towards the end specifying and obtaining paints proved just as difficult and I am forever grateful to a firm in Bletchley who made bespoke aerosols in three different colours for me.
The loco has been tested on air and runs well in forward and reverse but has never been run on steam as I am not a model engineering society member and in any case I have little interest in running my locos, it is the engineering and building that gives me pleasure”.
The 762 Club enlisted the help of Simon Hudson. www.steamworkshop.co.uk. To help us move the loco to a safe storage area where we are commissioning a display case for it to be suitably displayed in North Devon.
The 762 Club would specifically like to thank Wendy Fysh for her help in facilitating the move and to John for his most generous gift. I hope readers will marvel at his skill and gain much pleasure from seeing the locomotive on their trips to the Lynton & Barnstaple in future years;
The model was on display at the 2023 L&B Autumn Gala, however here are some photos of the construction of the loco and its movement by Simon.
