2" Robey Portable

Here we have a superb and everso-slightly massive 'working' diorama!  Firstly there's a 2" Robey portable.  Built as a working model, although currently unsteamed, it has been set up on this display with a rubber drive belt through the ground to a hidden electric motor so that it can be turned over at the flick of a switch.  The boiler is copper, nicely flanged, strongly made, riveted all over and then there's an extremely liberal application of solder caulking all over it on the inside, probably suggesting that a sensible working pressure would be around the 75 - 80 psi mark.  Machining work is nice and tight and everything moves just as well as it should.

The whole display comes on a large aluminium table that bolts together, and the three individual diorama sections bolt together in place so that it all becomes secure.  There is also a large cover box that fits both on top of the models as protection and underneath them as a neater display table.

Next up is the rather lovely Foster Threshing machine!  Fully functional,.... in that everything moves and shakes exactly as it should, and we think it's probably been built using the Haining Ransommes drawings as a basic guide, but tweaked here n there to 'Fosterise' it.  There's certainly a lot of nice model engineering inside it and the woodwork has been treated with both care and finesse.  It's got a really lovely and authentic feel to it and is one of the nicest representations we've seen because of it.

And last but not least is the 2" Foster hay lifter.  I'm afraid this is where our knowledge runs out.  It's certainly a lovely model and built with the same skill and attention to detail as the thresher.  It all works as it should and is finished in the same way as the thresher, which is much more 'scale model' than 'model engineer' in terms of it's ultimate realism.  It's a lovely thing in it's own right, but together with the other two it completes a superb display that would be an impressive addition to any museum or collection.