At the 2019 London Model Engineering Exhibition at Alexandra Palace two model Jinties drew attention. First is a 5" gauge model of this Martin Evans design, which was overhauled and repainted by a younger club member.

The full size LMS 3F locomotives were built in large numbers (422 in total between 1924 and 1931 for use shunting in depots and yards, as well as light passenger duties. Thanks to their large numbers, nine have survived into preservation and can be found at various heritage railways in England.

The second Jinty at Alexandra Palace (below) is by Tom Parham. Tom explains that havlng been born Into the hobby, It was for me always a question of when and what I would build rather than If ...

“As a treat for my 13th birthday, we visited the KESR and through connections parents managed to get me a round trip on the footplate, the loco in question was 47279, on loan from the KWVR. At Northiam, the driver allowed me to drive for the run around. My love for the Jinty was born.

“Dad remembered that drawings for this had been published in the Model Engineer by Martin Evans, and after mentioning that I would like to build one of them he bought me the castings, main frames and drawings for Christmas.”

There followed a slow progression, which was then halted for around 14 years for a variety of reasons, including the rebuild of two other locos and getting a model steam tug working, before recommencing the build.

“I had always wondered why there were so few of these models built, especially since the fundamental loco is so similar to Pansy, which is a fairly common model, at the time I had never seen a 5" Jinty running. During the build it became evident why, as I encountered a number of fundamental errors in the drawings. Had I not been so fond of the design I may have been tempted to put it aside. However, I persevered and in 2017 I finally finished the build approximately 20 years after starting.

“The drawings, as well as being riddled with errors, were also for a basic looking loco. I used these as a guideline and with the use of many many photos I made things up as I went along

in order to create what is for me a much more accurate representation of the full size loco, although a lot of the detail pictures came from the loco preserved at the Great Central

Railway. However, I still numbered it as per the KWVR loco I drove.

“I experimented with a number of things on the loco, redesigning the tube layout on the boiler to give more (slightly smaller) tubes and an extra superheater flue (now 4). The backhead has had a complete redesign to be closer to scale.”