the burrell must be one of the last gold medals made...?

Adam,

Gilbert has it listed as the last GMT being built 28/11/27. The interesting comment is that it was built using an altered 8 ton roller boiler.

John

Waste of a couple of lovely engines there!

After a conversation with another TT member he tells me that Frank Holl purchased "Busy Bee" just after WW2 still in original Burrell paintwork and it was not repainted during his ownership, so this must be one of the very few Burrell still in works paint.

Where's the Ruston portable these days then??
Is it in the Thinktank along with the Foden??

ruston is in the think tank apparently recently restored by these people http://www.heritageengineering.com/eng_04.html, but not been steamed since....
i believe having spoken to bham museum and currently working on their watermill down the road, that there may be posibilities for the burrel and aveling to be repaired (both need boiler work) to steam but money has been frozen since the swing to labour in the recent council elections. i gather now there is no prospect of this happening i will ask the question, though as i do have an ear currently. maybe one or both could go out on loan?

I personaly think that the Burrell should be left where it is.

There are more Gold Medal Tractors than anyother type left wich we see out and about, many of wich have been superbly returned to ex works condition.

Busy Bee on the other hand is probably the closest representation we have to one that is in its working condition.

If it were stripped and rebuilt I think it would be very hard to maintain its character without dammaging it.

Where it is it is looked after its not going rusty and hopefully one day it will be on a better display.

As a rule I detest the generic museum attitude to exhibits, but this time I think they got one right!

Like I said, waste of a good engine.