2" & 3" Scale Fowler Class A7 Single Cylinder Traction Engine

The Fowler A7 traction engine was developed in 2" and 3" scales to give builders a choice of finished size, to satisfy the need for a fairly simple and robust traction engine capable of sustained hard work on the rally fields or at school fetes.

The prototypes were the mainstay of agriculture from the end of the 19th century until the 1930s; when they were replaced by the early petrol tractors. The Fowlers were used for general haulage, threshing, sawing and, in fact, almost anything that needed power from a belt to drive it.

The seven horse-power engine quickly became very popular for threshing as they were big enough to be capable, but not so big as to be awkward in the average stackyard. A foot or so in length compared with the eight horse-power engines sounds trivial but it could very often make all the difference between being able to set up in a yard or not.

Single cylinder engines were the favourites for threshing as they governed better than compound engines at low pressures. Also, it could take an extra 20 minutes raising steam to get to the higher pressure required by the compounds for normal running.

Both scale models are very powerful for their size. The 2" version being easily able to pull its driver and an adult passenger, or two children. Whereas the 3" scale model will cope with its driver and six or seven children.

The models were scaled from works drawings, so they are fully authentic. As with the Burrell they employ aluminium castings for the wheel rims.

All of the castings are finely detailed.

The 2" engine weighs just over a hundredweight; the 3" engine is nearer to three and a half hundredweight.

Specification

Drawings