Accucraft UK Live Steam Manx Northern Railway Sharpie

[SteamRailwayCompany]

Here is a Link to the original post. http://steamrailwaycompany.deviantart.com/journal/Accucraft-UK-Live-Steam-Manx-Northern-Ry-Sharpies-548030199

Dear Friends of mine who are railway lovers,

I have some exciting, opportune news!

I have made a request to Accucraft UK, manufacturer of incredible live steam locomotives, to create a 15mm to 1 foot (1:20.3 Scale) 45mm gauge (Gauge One) live steam model of the long scrapped Manx Northern Railway locomotives built by Sharp, Stewart & Co. of Manchester, No. 1 Ramsey, and No. 2 Northern. I told them they would be a wonderful compliment to the other Isle of Man Railway locos they have made thus far.

Incredibly, they have kindly given me this response. I have bolded the most exciting portion you shall soon see!

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Mason, Hi! Thank you for your suggestion, the 'Sharpies' are indeed attractive little engines but yours is the first request we have had to make an example which might give you a clue to their 'popularity' as such. In light of this I am afraid they are not very high on our list of IoM locomotives, especially given that we have 'Caledonia' to represent the MNR.
However, never say "never" - if you can find fifty like-minded folk we'll happily make you a batch! ;-)
Regards, Graham.
-----Original Message-----
From: Mason Allen Buskirk
Sent: 18 July 2015 03:54
To: Info
Subject: Website Enquiry
From: Mason Allen Buskirk
Enquiry:
Dear Sir or Madam of Accucraft UK Ltd.,
I am an admirer of your fantastic models, in both live steam and electric, of British locomotives and rolling stock, and especially your stable of locos and rolling stock of the Isle of Man Railway. Your live steam models of Peveril, Caledonia, and Mannin, are without parallel for their crisp appearances, detailing, and performance for commercially produced models of Manx prototypes. I would like to suggest, so as to compliment the line of locos from the IOMR you have made thus far, that you would manufacture a live steam model of one of the 2-4-0T locos (Ramsey (No. 1) and Northern (No. 2)) built by Sharp, Stewart & Co. of Manchester for the Manx Northern Railway in 1879. These engines, of course, are no longer with us, unlike the IOM Beyer Peacock locos, and to have a live steam model of this MNR engine (of which no commercially produced models are known to exist) would be a welcomed sight indeed. Dimensions of these engines are available in The Isle of Man Railway by James I. C. Boyd, along with photographs of them in service. I thank you for your kind consideration of my suggestion for a suitable future engine for you to produce, and I wish you well upon your consideration of the feasibility to produce this engine.
Sincerely,
Mason Allen Buskirk

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That's right! We only need fifty (50) individuals to each send emails to Accucraft UK www.accucraft.uk.com/co… by going to "Contact Us" in order for this lovely engine to be made! Normally, such would take perhaps a thousand or ten thousand for a manufacturer to consider the viability of making a new loco, which makes this a considerably rare opportunity! Please contact as many other railway lovers as you can find, to make the same request, even if they know little of the Isle of Man Railway! If they don't, there are plenty of sites for them to learn of the Isle of Man Railway and instantly become fascinated by it! Plenty can be found of Accucraft's other, previously made IoM locos as well! Please comment so that I know how many are interested in the idea. Also, please participate in the poll I have posted below, so that we can measure how close we are to this easily achievable goal of making this live steam model a reality!

Manx Northern Railway No. 2 by SteamRailwayCompany

This is the official Works Photograph of Manx Northern Railway No. 2 Northern.
The two Sharp engines were basically the same, with minimal differences which Accucraft could easily replicate.
The livery of these engines was MNR Tuscan Red (Dark Claret) with black lining with a thin vermilion line each side. Chimney caps were copper, and the domes were polished brass when new, later painted.
If you like, I can show you more photographs of these engines.
​

Please be so kind as to make a request via email to Accucraft www.accucraft.uk.com/co…, and together, we can make this engine relive again in live steam no less overnight! Thank you so much for your great help!

I have also written to the editor of Garden Rail, who shall publish this matter in the September issue! Please look out for that!

 

[TLR]

I think you will find that it is fifty people who are willing to buy the loco not just sending an Email, otherwise they could end up with a batch of loco's that nobody wants.


Shaun.

 

[SteamRailwayCompany]

I had thought that out, but what is to say that others wouldn't want this model? Isle of Man locos are certainly high on Accucraft's range of desirable engines, considering they've recently made Mannin, and they certainly sell out fast. I also believe they wouldn't make too many so they'd have surplus. It's certainly worth a try.
Thank you for your response.

 

[Hugh Napier]

OK, let's sort a few things out here. We have production plans in place for at least three years which include further IoM locos. We don't appreciate these sort of hares being set running like this when there is little likelihood of a model appearing in the near future, it is simply not fair on folk.

Having studied the prototype there would clearly be a lot of new tooling required so we'd more than likely be looking at either 50 very expensive locos or a commercial batch of 100. The loco would also be limited to at least 6' radius curves because of the layout of the slidebars and pony wheels.

We would not appreciate our email inbox filling up with demands for this or that prototype (not that this has happened in this case anyway) unless someone comes to us and says "Here are 100 confirmed orders, and this is a $50,000 deposit to start the project, may we discuss it please?".

Graham.

 

[daveyb]

its a lovely engine and probably would sell well as it would appeal to those who model the iom rly

but there are so many models out there to choose, even more with the emergence of 7/8ths scale

but i think its a good idea to poll what you would like built and discuss it certainly it points the manufacturers in certain directions

 

[tagorton]

I think you will find that it is fifty people who are willing to buy the loco not just sending an Email, otherwise they could end up with a batch of loco's that nobody wants.

no less overnight! Thank you so much for your great help!

I have also written to the editor of Garden Rail, who shall publish this matter in the September issue! Please look out for that![/font]

Actually what I have said is that I will publish a letter from you (as I do in our readers letters column on a regular basis) although while you have sent me your email thread you have not sent me an actual letter. I think perhaps you have misunderstood what Accucraft said, but I see that Graham Langer has put the position clearly enough from Accucraft's point of view. Interesting to note Graham's comments regarding the pony truck. It is, most certainly, right behind the slide bars. Now, this was fine on the prototype, but given the sort of radii used on the larger proportion of garden railways, this would indeed present a problem in that it would severely attenuate the number of people who could consider a purchase such as this and I think Grahams estimate of 6ft radius is actually a bit optimistic! The fewer the likely sales then the more expensive each locomotive would be – this is the same for any manufactured equipment. The best bet here I would think is to commission a loco from an individual builder. This would certainly be very expensive but then one would have a model that no-one else has!

 

[Rhinochugger]

It might be achievable if the chassis were constructed as a 'fake' 0-6-0.

But there remain the problems of its limited appeal, and the fact that Caledonia didn't look comfortable on small radius bends because of the length of the wheelbase.

 

[TLR]

Tag you appear to have merged two quotes and atributed them to me TLR.
Only the first couple of lines are mine the rest belong to SteamRailwayCompany.
Sorry to be pedantic.

Shaun

 

[tagorton]

Tag you appear to have merged two quotes and atributed them to me TLR.
Only the first couple of lines are mine the rest belong to SteamRailwayCompany.
Sorry to be pedantic.

Shaun

I thought it bore repeating Shaun. Your comment was on the nail.

 

[Northsider]

One or two members of the IOM 15mil Group have looked at scratchbuilding a Sharpie in the past, but have not been able to resolve the problem of the radial truck arrangement for the leading wheels. The Manx Beyer Peacocks have inclined cylinders that clear the pony truck on tight radii, but this is not the case with the Sharpies. So any model will either need huge radii curves, or a non-prototypical solution. I recall reading a build log for a Southwold Sharpie on this site, and think that it also needed a compromise in this regard.