The photograph below and those on the following pages show the first public unveiling of ‘Odin’, a new build replica of Denmark’s first steam locomotive at Odense, Denmark on Sat 15th. September 2018.
The locomotive, a Sharp Bros single (‘Sharpie’) was built at the Danish Railway Museum workshops at Roskilde, Denmark, to designs prepared by British historians Dr Michael Bailey and John Glithero. Bailey and Glithero drew on surviving Sharp Bros drawings for similar locomotives supplied to the LNWR and other British lines, since ‘Odin’s’ drawings do not survive. The original locomotive was built in 1846 and the team were able to use surviving drawings of an engine supplied to the LNWR in that year as the basis of their design. A superb 1/10 scale model of Odin built in the 1920’s and in the museum’s collection, supplied further details. The result is a fully functional replica of a long lost British design (no other ‘Sharpies’ exist anywhere in the world) almost identical to the engine shown at Market Harborough in the famous photograph commented on by Harry Jack. The replica is built to a very high standard, as can be seen in the pictures, and performs as well as it looks. The performance with the museum’s train of authentic mid-Victorian vehicles (in which I was privileged to be a passenger!) was faultless and in tests the same evening, it reputedly pulled a modern diesel shunter backwards! Modellers might note that Bailey and Glithero’ drawings are reproduced in “The Odin Project”, a fascinating account of their research available from the Museum shop. It is this author’s intention to produce a 3D replica of Odin at 10mm/ft scale (gauge 1) to compliment his collection of early LNWR locomotives. The Danish Railway Museum is at Click Here