Vancouver Society of Model and Experimental Engineers

History
A. L. Simons submitted the following article to "The Miniature Locomotive" magazine, and appeared in the January-February 1953 edition.

I'm sorry that is has taken so long to correspond with you but it seems that during the summer months there are so many things to do.



At the present time out club has no space to install its track. For a number of years we have had the track on property owned by one of our members, but recently this property was sold. At the present time we have been graciously using member Jack Wood's track but we hope that soon we'll have our own.

One of the members, Bill Fenton, has just completed a three-fourth inch scale 4-6-0 "Heilan Lassie" three cylinder passenger express model. This engine has a Baker gear with the Holcroft linkage. The cylinders are one and three-sixteenths inch bore by one and three-fourths inch stroke and overall length is twenty-seven and three-fourths inches. With water she weights eighty-five pounds. Bill spent four and one-half years spare time work in building this engine and did most of the work on a six inch Atlas lathe, completing same on a ten inch Myford.

One Saturday, short time ago, we took the engine out to Jack Wood's property and steamed her up for her trial run. We had to hold Bill's chest in with a straight jacket, for you never saw a more proud engineer. She made a number of turns around the track hauling a number of passengers on each trip but on the next trip Bill failed to show up at the terminus, so on investigation we found Bill half way around, looking very disgusted. Upon checking the engine over he found that an improperly supported piston rod had bent causing the engine to seize up. The following week the same was rectified and the engine behaved beautifully on its next run.