Barber-Greene Olding Elevator/Loader

This is a big toy. It obviously needs a towing vehicle too, the only remotely suitable truck in my collection is the old Bedford below which is dwarfed by this monster. Perhaps I should have put it behind my Corgi Euclid bulldozer to get a roadbuilding and earth moving theme. It is so big that to get it in the picture you can see bits of my mini studio that I don't want to show - mainly the back-light - which is not lit.

It is also a toy that was meant to work. The conveyor belt fits very snugly and looks like it would lift sand in the sand pit very well. You just need a Muir Hill Loader to feed on to the bottom and my Bedford to be under the chute (or cute as you'll find on the link below) and you have a real play scene. This one was not working when it arrived but a little gentle easing of the bottom chute and judicious trimming of the belt and now it works nicely. It has also cleaned up really well, someone in the past did not resist the temptation to use it for real soil.

Just to complete the feature list - the bottom chute lifts for transport using a lever at the side and the top one swings from side to side. The belt moves when a small crank handle is turned. Detail is really nice. There is what appears to be a tractor engine to power the belt and the drive chains are really well modelled with the sprockets and adjustters all there. From both a detail and a playability point of view - this is a good-un.