Garden Railway Forum

Successful first run on coal. Lots of detail work still to do, but she runs really nice. Lots to learn and practice with the coal firing before the fist public run next month.

It might look automatic as the Riverdale is designed for it to be controlled via RC servo on the 3rd or 4th channel. Here is the basic engine completed for the most part. Once the missing safety valve and its mounting adapter arrive, I can fire her up for the first time. https://i.ibb.co/fD3fZyM/Riv...

The damping is not automatic, its just the ability to slightly open the firebox door a bit to allow cool air to put pulled in and not up thru the fire. I will get a picture of the grate later today, its a conventional bar type. The firebox is dry sided and quite thick. 2 large, 10mm internal diamete...

New pic time, progress is being made. By the time the missing parts are shipped to me, I will be ready to light a fire in her. https://i.ibb.co/hcwN4M8/Riverdale7.jpg https://i.ibb.co/74Lv6BQ/Riverdale6.jpg view inside the firebox before i put the boiler on the chassis https://i.ibb.co/zs8XPkK/20220...

Yes, I will get a pic here later today looking up inside the firebox.

The fun has begun. The two flue tubes are 10mm internal diameter and 1mm thick, set low in the boiler. The firebox copper thickness is 2mm, Under the sand box on the Billy/Elke is the goodall valve to replenish boiler water. Safety valve is in the normal location as on the gas fired Billy boiler. Th...

From what I hear, he is all but retired from building them with less than 10 being done and only for EU countries. Its such a unique design, I am supprised someone has not tried to clone it. Seems everytime someone does a coal fired engine, they go whole hog with working side/saddle tanks, some kind...

I sure can, post up a list of which dimension you want from the boiler and if you want them in metric or inches.

The stars have aligned and I managed to finally get my hands on a Riverdale Elke kit that I could get to the USA. I have been interested in this design of coal fired boiler since I first saw them come on the market. They were just way out of budget and we all know Joep would not ship to the USA, now...

I am in the process of buying a second hand partially built Elke from Simon at ANG. So problem soon to be solved. I am supprised the Chinese have not copied the design as its so simple and could open up coal firing to the masses if Bowande or Accucraft offered that option on factory built models. By...

Most are much more expensive and lack the simple design of Joep's Riverdale boilers. I have no desire to deal with axle pumps, working side tanks ect. Hopefully a second hand engine or unused boiler will turn up next year. Be nice if someone produced more coal boilers to his basic design for the RH ...

Do we have any forum members that live in the EU? Looking for someone to assist me in buying a Riverdale coal fired boiler kit next year. They will only sell to the EU, so I need someone I trust to play middle man so to speak. Feel free to PM me to keep it off the main forum. Huge thanks in advance....

Bing and Channing are great guys, love chatting with them. Its a whole "made in the USA" mentality to many over here, for better or worse. It would really cool if Simon W over at Anything Narrow Gauge took on the molds and line to offer the parts as part of his business, but he may not hav...

The kits look great, Are there any plans to do freight rolling stock for Sierra Leone narrow gauge to go with all the 2-6-2t Hunslets out there? Or are the SAR kits close enough to use as "stand in's" for cars used on the SLR? I am hopefully that the SLR coaches come into production next y...

Looking for a Merlin Motor Mule in good condition. Thanks. Mike

Thanks for the response Ian. Does the mold masters include the one that made the pony truck detail part with the springs? I am missing on, so right now the pony truck has none on it as the other fell off and is sitting on my bench waiting for me to reattach it with some epoxy. She runs as good as sh...

Picked this up from Anything Narrow Gauge, well FedEx brought it to me in the USA. Nice old early production Merlin(works number 74) SLR/W&L Hunslet. According to Simon, it was personally delivered by Mr Cooper to the customer, where it then sat under his workbench for a couple decades. The cust...

I just officially joined the Association, hopefully they will start me with that issue with part one of the article. if not, hopefully I can get it as a back issue. I just test steamed my Merlin SLR #85 Hunslet as the Fedex man woke me up with a big package for me from the UK. She is build number 74...

Just got caught up with all your progress. Beautiful Merlin live steamer, btw if you need parts or help, Simon over at Anything Narrow Gauge is pretty sharp when it comes to the old Merlin locos. Once you have them running good they usually will. I might have missed it, did you get the pressure gaug...

At one time, Ian Pearse was talking about a article(s) he was working on to tell the backstory from his perspective of his time at Merlin Locomotive Works, I believe it was for 16mm today. Has this ever been published yet? I have been in and out of the 16mm world and being stateside, I dont get to t...