Morris Minor Owners Club

See attached link for old lathe that used the bell housing and first motion shaft to support one end of the pulley shaft.
http://www.lathes.co.uk/advertphoto/140611britannia/

I'm not sure Mrs BMC will agree to that in the study...... Is the gearbox somehow used to vary the speed to the feed ??

If you look closely and follow the drive train there is no drive to the headstock through the Minor gearbox bell housing. All the drive belting/drive for the headstock is kept to the L/H side of the lathe.
There does appears to be some sort of gear train though fitted on the right leg of the lathe which may be there to drive/move the lead screw which moves the carriage/saddle backwards and forwards. The carriage lead screw on this particular lathe is usually driven through the gear train on the left of the lathe but there may be parts missing in that area that necessitated the use of the Minor bell housing.
Quite a nice lathe that would clean up nicely but even too big for me.
The Lathes web site is very interesting and full of information to those inclined towards old machinery.
Now if I had the room the whole of the workshop machinery (see link: http://jpegbay.com/gallery/003729732-.html) which is for sale (e bay item No: 321452674332) would be relocated into my wksp and put to good use by me.
Note for bmc - machinery last used for making large scale steam model railway engines

I prefer FULL scale.......

Full scale is what you get when you have hard water and do not use a water softening plant for the water used in locomotive boilers

Now there's a thing I'd never even thought about - do you have to use soft water in a loco? or de-scale the boilers regularly?

It is better if you use soft water in a locomotive boiler.
In areas of extreme hard water railway companies had either water softening plants or supplied large water softening tablets to add to the water in either the tender or water tanks.
If you are realy interested see:-
http://www.steamindex.com/jile/jile47.htm

Vol: 47 of 1957. Paper 573. Author J.S. Hancock.

That was before they discovered Calgon.