Here we have a rather stunning and certainly unique 5" gauge Franco-Crosti 9F!! For the uninitiated amongst us, The Franco-Crosti boiler system was designed in the 1930s by Attilio Franco and Dr Piero Crosti. It's basically a large secondary boiler, tucked (in this case) underneath the conventional 9F Boiler, and used as a feed water heater. The chimney on top of the smoke box is used for traditionally lighting up, but then has a 'mini' smoke box door inside it, and of course no blast pipe underneath it. The floor of the smoke box is essentially missing at the front, creating a chamber where the hot flue gasses are pulled downwards and returned backwards toward the cab through a second bunch of tubes (behind the smaller smoke box door) through the smaller Crosti boiler, to ultimately be exhausted by the quadruple blast pipes on the side of the rear of the boiler barrel! Or to put it simpler,..... it's really really cool!! Oh,.... and before you ask,..... no it isn't just a dummy! It's a real working model of the Crosti-boiler set up, although as yet this is a brand new and unsteamed model, so we are quite excited to see if it actually works in miniature!
The detail is quite spectacular. Everything is there and nicely modeled. The builder actually made a pair of 9Fs, one being in the standard BR format, the other being this one. We commissioned the standard one some years ago and although a time consuming process due to the sheer level of detail and 12 ba nuts and bolts everywhere, she ultimately ran very nicely. This one is a step up again in complexity with things like the exhaust steam injector being real and plumbed into the crosti boiler as per the prototype, so if indeed she's to run it'll certainly have plenty of unique challenges to make things interesting.
More details to follow, but for now have a good look at all the detailed photos, hopefully they should give you the general idea of the model, and hopefully an appreciation of what this extremely capable model engineer accomplished!
As with most of our models, what you see isn't necessarily what you get! We often photograph models pretty much as they come in to us, and then when someone phones to say they are interested we pull the model into our workshops and make sure everything is tested, sorted and ready to go. So if you see the odd model photograph with a fitting missing or a return crank in the wrong place, that's just how it came in and certainly not how it will leave.
For any more information please don't hesitate to give us a bell on 07816 963463
SORRY IT'S SOLD!!!!
