Taylor Brothers Train

My query relates to Taylor Brothers of Sheffield and I hope that someone may be able to assist me in my search for information. My search is not to do with handsaws, but with a model steam train. The link between the model train and Taylor Brothers is that the engine is stamped with the Taylor Brothers logo. I have been led to believe that the engine may be a model of a steam engine that ran between Flinders St Station and Sandridge in Melbourne, Australia possibly around or after 1855.

The Taylor Brothers logo is very faint but appears to bear the words "Made for Taylor Brothers Sheffield" and also shows the logo of the recumbent lamb and pennant. I have not been able to find anything about a connection between the Taylor Brothers and steam engines, however if anyone is able to provide me with any assistance in my search, I would be most grateful.

The following photographs show the engine, and a magnified image of the logo and wording. I have not been able to find any other markings on the train that would help identify the maker or origins.

 

Since the logo is the same as on a saw blade, and is off center in use on the engine compartment, I wonder if a Taylor saw blade was scavenged for raw material by the maker of the model train?
And am I correct in reading the words at top in the s-curve as "Made for use" rather than Made for Taylor Brothers?
David

 

Somewhere on this site (I have looked and I cannot find the thread), is a Taylor Brothers saw blade with an etch of a locomotive on it. And from memory a lovely etch it is as well.

Also from my very unreliable memory, it looks a lot like your engine with the large single set of driving wheels.

When I first saw the engine etch, I thought that it was one of the ones made for the Great Western Railway when they were using the 7 foot gauge. The gauge of your engine looks to my untutored eye to be wider than the standard gauge.


So if your Flinders to Sandbridge railway ran on broad gauge, then you may have something.

It may also be that not only is your engine constructed from a Taylors saw but that somewhere underneath the paintwork is a representation of itself.

Fred

 

There's a Taylor & Son on eBay right now with the locomotive etch. Have a look here....

- Mark

 

No problem moving this post to a more appropriate thread - thanks for doing this. Research to date seems to suggest that the model was built around 1855.

Thanks to all who have posted responses . The logo appears on roughly midway along the running board, just ahead of the large driving wheels. I am not sure if the running board might be a recycled saw blade, however the logo is stamped 'lengthwise' on the running board whereas if this was made from a recycled saw blade I would expect that it would be in a horizontal orientation.

It is quite possible that the words at the top read "Made for use". I think the paint would need to be stripped off to get a clearer view of this however I would be reluctant to do this.

My research to date leads me to think that this might be what is classified as a 2-2-2WT engine. Mention is made of such an engine being used in the early history of the Melbourne and Hobson's Bay Railway Company line between Flinders St and Sandridge, however I have not been able to find any photographs or drawings of the engine. The etching on the saw blade shown on eBay appears to have similarities to the model engine. It was the mention of this in another post on Backsaw that drew my attention to your forum.

I ahve attempted to learn more through the Sheffield library however the material is not available online and I would need to go to Sheffield to conduct further investigation. Unfortunately this is not possible at present.

Thanks again for you interest. It is much appreciated. If I learn any more of the engine's connection with Taylor Brothers, I will post this.

 

A couple of Taylor Brothers train etches on saws (as posted a year or two ago). Taylor Bros had some additional train style etches as well.


The lower train engine appears to be the same 2-2-2 configuration as the model.
A quick Google shows that Taylor Brothers produced train parts from the 1870s, (but no indication found of entire engines, or of model engines)
As David noted, the model piece with the Taylor Brothers name and logo could have been cut from a saw blade, as it appears identical to one of TB's more common blade markings.

 

Thanks four your response Kiwi. The lower saw etching certainly appears to be very similar. I will try to find out more about the Taylor Brothers production of train parts.

 

There is a very large story to be told about Taylor Brothers and the art work they incorporated on to their saws from the 1850s (and which they were still using, in a very debased form, in the 1950s). They used a specialist printer who would be commissioned to make a steel engraving block from which tissue paper transfers were printed, the design being picked out with a bitumen-based resist; when applied to the steel and concentrated nitric acid was poured over it, the tissue paper dissolved, except for the resist, leaving the design; the acid was killed with alkali and the whole thing washed. There is no record of who the artists were who made the designs, or what the brief was that they were working to. The surviving invoices of the printing company show hundreds of thousands of transfers being ordered by Taylors, and several other leading Sheffield saw makers (and Taylors for these others as well); the orders include the phrases shown on this excerpt from an invoice page, such as "Railways" (just one month in the summer of 1859, and they were ordering – ie making – well over 7000 saws).


The other picture shows another part of the page that is shown above, with three other of their train designs.

 

Thank you for this additional information about the train etchings. My research through the Public Records Office and State Library has not revealed why the Taylor Brothers trademark comes to be on the model engine. Taylor Brothers had entered saws in the Intercolonial Exhibition held in Melbourne in the mid to late 1800s but I have not found any mention of them in connection with steam trains that operated in Melbourne.