The Elmdon Model Engineering Society, in conjunction with the Transport Museum, Wythall in north Worcestershire, is auctioning a 7¼-inch-gauge steam locomotive with the proceeds being donated to Alzheimer’s Research.

The model is of Great Western Railway King Class No. 6011 King James I and is being auctioned on behalf of Dennis Herbert who painstakingly built it over 8 years and has run it on a number of occasions at the Wythall miniature railway.

Now in his 90th year, Dennis is a retired railwayman and has been a member of the Elmdon Model Railway Society for almost 35 years.

He has been diagnosed with Stage 4B terminal cancer and asked the society to help him put his affairs in order, in particular, by selling his magnificent model of King James I

A self-taught, prolific model engineer, besides building many steam locomotives, Dennis has also built clocks and manufactured the tooling needed to produce their components.

His attention to detail is astonishing, and every feature is as near to scale as is possible in a coal-fired, operational steam locomotive.

Dennis has also written two books about model engineering and donated royalties to Alzheimer’s Research.

The model is being sold via a sealed bid auction, with all proceeds being donated to Alzheimer’s Research in a tribute to his late wife Iris and two fellow society members who also succumbed to cancer.

Dennis has released a video about his project to build King James I.

Auction bids should be made by email to [email protected] by 28th March.

Last year, an auction was held at Scarborough in Yorkshire of an enormous model railway with 131 locomotives, dozens of vintage passenger carriages, 80 goods wagons and two breakdown cranes, and the Railway Benefit Fund held its annual auction of once-in-a-lifetime rail experiences that money can t buy.

“My engine is somewhat unique in as much as I inadvertently purchased the castings from a deceased model engineer’s workshop after they had lain untouched for eight years. I was totally unaware that the purchased materials had originally belonged to the designer Trevor Shortland. Trevor had made all the patterns for the engine and tender chassis and had them cast faultlessly, locally in small foundries in South Birmingham. Some two years of working into the project, I met a gentleman at the club site and enquired if he might be interested in joining us. In conversation he added that he had produced the scaled drawings for Reeves 7 ” gauge King George V so I made it known that I had started working on my project after buying the castings from a workshop in Bromsgrove. The startled reply came that he had in fact sold all his previous work to that very man. Here was my locomotive’s creator. Wanting my engine to be a double chimney version, Trevor made the patterns and cast them for me.”

Dennis Herbert