The Sweet Pea design by Jack Buckler really has a lot going for it. It is a simple, well-proven design and it can readily be altered to suit the builder’s own taste and ideas. Michael Parkin’s model is of the Metre Maid variant with an 0-6-0 rather than 0-4-0 wheel arrangement, with associated stability. The locomotive was photographed at Doncaster 2016.

The simplicity of the Sweet Pea design has also made it a favourite with beginners. The boiler is a simple as can be, of a marine-type - also favoured for Toby, Steve Eaton’s brilliant little engine in 2.5” gauge.

The Sweet Pea valve gear is also simple to make, ‘tho Toby’s even simpler. All of this is a serious contrast with some so-called beginners engines requiring, for example, watchmaking skills to produce Walschaerts valve gear for a 3.5” gauge Tich.

As a variant of Sweet Pea, castings are readily available for Metre Maid, as are drawings. Jack Bucker described Sweet Pea in Engineering in Miniature some years back, and TEE has since re-published the articles in a best-selling book.