Why Live Steam?

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ge_rik
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Re: Why Live Steam?

Post by ge_rik » Sat Jan 13, 2018 9:41 am

I think as Tom has suggested that this discussion has probably run its course, but I'll leave you with something to ponder over.

Would Slomo have been invented if it hadn't been for steam outline battery locos?
On the surface, that might sound like an entirely theoretical question - but hear me out.

Terry Robinson (Mr Slomo) lives just outside Sydney and is a member of GRASS (the Garden Railway Addicts of Sutherland Shire) - http://www.trainweb.org/grass/ . This small group of GR enthusiasts visit each others' garden railways and run trains every two weeks or so. The majority of its members run battery powered locos (steam and diesel outline) but a couple also run live steam locos - Terry being one of them.

At their running sessions, Terry's live steam locos run alongside battery locos - eg see this video from 2013 - https://youtu.be/fvzPdvxQFgc (Terry's Billy is at 2m 40s). I can't help wondering if this is what prompted Terry to develop Slomo - so he could get the same sort of control and slow running from his locos as the battery locos.

Incidentally, Terry also has added microchip controlled water pumps to his tender locos so their boilers get automatically topped-up when they are running low. The circuitry was developed by another of the GRASS members. How do I know all this? I am an honorary member of GRASS - the lengths I have to go to to find like-minded battery powered garden railway modellers.......! :? :lol:

I think this just goes to show though what an inclusive community we are - that there is a symbiotic relationship between all branches of our hobby, and how willing we are to share our expertise (and also our anxieties and confusion).

Thanks to everyone who has contributed to this discussion (so far - there may be more). I've found it really interesting and enlightening. I honestly feel I now have a lot more understanding of and respect for those of you who prefer live steam to other forms of motive power.

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Re: Why Live Steam?

Post by tom_tom_go » Sat Jan 13, 2018 10:43 am

Cannot resist saying this despite wanting to end the topic...

My Roundhouse locos are perfectly capable of running at scale speeds providing they have a sufficient load to pull.

The SSP Slomo is making up for the fact that locos in this scale do not weigh much compared to the real thing so there is hardly much inertia. Even locos in 5" can rocket along light engine as their power outweighs their weight.

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Re: Why Live Steam?

Post by FWLR » Sat Jan 13, 2018 10:55 am

This as been a brilliant thread Rik, thank you for starting it. It shows to me at least that ther is a place for all forms of garden railways. :thumbright: :thumbright:

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Re: Why Live Steam?

Post by Keith S » Sat Jan 13, 2018 6:56 pm

ge_rik wrote: โ†‘Fri Jan 12, 2018 7:06 pm I wonder if we are more nostalgic for steam in the uk than other parts of the world? Certainly we have far more preserved steam railways than anywhere else - or is that just a legacy of Beeching - ie we have more opportunities? Or is it because the little old uk is the cradle of the industrial revolution?

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I have often thought it's both, although I'm not sure how much an awareness of the industrial revolution specifically propels the enthusiasm of the average British citizen. It may be a chicken/egg phenomenon, whereby the average Briton sees steam locomotives, if only incidentally, more often than, say, a Canadian, therefore is more aware of them in general. And as a result of that, more likely to notice and appreciate them, even if they lack any specific nostalgia for them. There is enough population density in Britain to sustain a "critical mass" of enthusiasm, especially among young people.

In Canada, we have very few preserved steam locomotives. This is due to three things. One is, the relatively small and spread-out population of our country doesn't provide the concentration of enthusiasts that are necessary to support the kind of donation-driven preservation enterprise that would be necessary to restore and maintain a large obsolete machine. The second is, our railway network is more-or-less a great East/West corridor with a few little branches that either connect south to the American network, or north to isolated little villages in the great unpopulated wilderness. When these little branches are abandoned, they typically have no infrastructure or population base to support any tourism. Third, the main lines are owned by large corporations whose lawyers and executives have successfully pursued an agressive "no steam" policy. One of those companies, the Canadian Pacific, actually OWNS a road-worthy Hudson-style locomotive with a current certificate, which is prohibited from operating by their own no-steam policy. With respect to other types of steam, there are a few reciprocating steamships in preservation, which suffer from a lack of qualified engineering officers to operate them. Traction engines are sometimes seen at harvest festivals and such, notably there is the "Milton steam fair" that is attended by a fair number of preserved traction engines, but again that is in a part of Canada that is probably the most populous, and compared to a British example, it is still a very small fair. I suppose you could divide for the sake of argument, any population into those who those who have seen a steam engine and those who have not. You could then further divide that segment who have seen one into those who found it interesting enough to develop an enthusiasm and those who did not. In Britain, almost everyone has seen one. In Canada, only those who are old enough to remember them from the "steam era", plus perhaps the children of enthusiasts, or those who live near the rare one that is in preservation, have seen one.

A better example might be the United States, there is more population and a greater number of "branch lines" that actually go between places one might actually want to visit. There is therefore a higher percentage per capita of people who might wish to go the the effort of going to see a steam engine, and any engine that does come out in public stands a greater chance of being seen by someone who is excited by it. There are therefore more steam engines, and actually a few preserved branch-lines and narrow-gauge lines in oreservation. Still nothing like the number there were in Britain.

Finally, Britain had the great Barry scrapyard, which served as a choke-point in the demolition of the country's steam fleet. Scrapping was delayed long enough for an enthusiasm base to develop. In North America, we chopped them up with great diligence and enthusiasm, so that by the time anyone felt nostalgic about them, there were hardly any left over!

As for myself, 16mm models also appeal to me because my family is British, therefore the scenery and atmosphere of that style of garden railway appeals to me aesthetically. I love gardening, and I love parochial little villages with ancient, slightly crumbling infrastructure and buildings, and I love steam engines. So the British style of garden railway modelling is very compelling to me. I am a Canadian in the old sense of the word, that is, a "British North American", and as such, I seek cultural touchstones from the home nation. Possibly this is partly why I love steam engines.

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Re: Why Live Steam?

Post by ge_rik » Sat Jan 13, 2018 8:12 pm

Wow, Keith. That's a really interesting and compelling analysis. It sounds like geography as well as history are important determining factors for preservation.

One reason why there were so many supposedly uneconomic branch lines in the the uk is related to the way in which they were initiated and financed. Unlike other countries, railways in the uk evolved in the 1800s by competitive private endeavour rather than through centralised national planning. As a consequence, there was a considerable amount of duplication and redundancy. Probably why there's more opportunity here than elsewhere. As you say, combine that with Barry and you have the right sort of infrastructure for preservation.

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Re: Why Live Steam?

Post by IrishPeter » Sat Jan 13, 2018 11:48 pm

I have a theory, which I will probably never write up in a scientific manner, that had the Beeching Report not been implemented, and the principle of Public Service Obligation conceded earlier we might actually have something approaching a rational national network. Certainly the closures of the 1950s had removed a lot of true duplicate routes, but by the time you get to the Beeching closures there are definitely cases where muscle was cut, rather than fat.

One of the more egregious examples of short termism was the decision to cancel York - Mkt. Weighton - Beverley resignalling in 1962 until the Beeching Report was completed. The reason I pick on this example is that the CTC scheme that would have singled the line apart from a couple of dynamic passing loops, automated the many level crossings, and eliminated all but two of the signal boxes on the line. The estimates showed that this would have reduced annual costs by approximately GBP50,000 a year transforming a loss of GBP40,000 a year into an operating surplus of around GBP10,000. It was estimated that the CTC scheme would have paid for itself in 6 years, well within the then budgetary guidelines for British Railways. Instead the line was closed, and worse still closed by using "fuzzy maths." Revenue from Hull to York passengers was not counted because Beeching's team held that the traffic would simply move to the Hull-Selby-York Route despite the fact that that journey usually involved a change of train. (FWIW, much of the through traffic was lost because folks travelling between York and Hull refused to change at Selby, and the handful of direct trains via Church Fenton did not offer a competitive service.) They also ignored the savings that could be achieved by modernisation, which in the case of the York to Beverley line had already been costed, and proven to be economically sound. The suspicion always hangs about the Beeching Report that it was basically a way of white washing a declared Ministry of Roa... erm Transport policy of switching investment from Rail to Road to benefit the oil/rubber/car industries. It is also perhaps indicative of the clout of the T&GWU in those days that Wilson had no problem ratting on his promise to halt the closures for further review when elected PM in 1964.

In the end, the only thing the Beeching Report proved was that the railway system does not function the same way as ICI!

Now I have that off my chest, there is a strong base for saying that nostalgia, and a well developed sense of Britain's industrial heritage combine with a relative dense population has a lot to do with the number of heritage lines that exist in England and Wales. By comparison Scotland has few, and except for the SRPS at Bo'ness, and the Speyside Railway, they are relative late comers, so far as I understand it.

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Traffic Pattern? What pattern? Spuds out; grain in, but cattle, sheep and passengers are a lot less predictable.

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Re: Why Live Steam?

Post by ge_rik » Sun Jan 14, 2018 7:15 am

Fascinating insight into one of the dodgy decisions underlying the Beeching cuts - interesting too that at the same time, there was no problem finding money for road building.

There are a couple of heritage narrow gauge lines in Scotland as well. Shame no one has resurrected the C&M, but then I suppose it is a bit out on a limb.

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Re: Why Live Steam?

Post by daan » Sun Jan 14, 2018 9:07 am

Untill my live steam loco's I was "playing trains". Sitting on the side, turning a wheel or pushing a lever, and the train in front of me would start to run. Whatever train was on the track, the same simple procedure would get anything to live, even 2 or 3 trains at the same time.

With live steam, it's like prepairing a ritual. You need to prepare the engine, clean it, lubricate it, fill her up with water, fuel and light her fire. then you check the noise. Do I still hear the rumbling noise in her belly, or is it hissing again? Then wait for the pressuregauge to start floating on it's scale.

After a while she's blowing off and you need to turn the gas low. With a lever in the locomotive I select the direction and feel the light shudder in the little engine of steam starting to push the pistons. Then with another lever I can choose the amount of steam to the pistons and by doing that she starts rumbling along, spitting hot water from the chimney, like the dragon spits her fire.

After a round on the railwayline, the cylinders have heated up and I can close the regulator a bit, causing the oil to drip down in the chimney and burn in the firetube, causing blue smoke and the distinct smell of steamoil. As she rumbles along with her train, the engine wiggles slightly in the rythm of her cylinderstrokes, chuffing and leaving a plume of hot smoke in the air above her.

No way I can control 2 or even 3 engines at the same time. Her flamboyant character needs constant attention, regulating steam and gas, checking the waterlevel, until a sudden drop in power and a following plume of blue smoke attents on the end of the gas supply, then I need to get the regulator open and try to squeeze out the last bits of steam to get her and her train into the next station when possible, or past that difficult to reacht corner in the layout.

Then, when finished running, drain the hot lubricator, clean the spilt oil and steam residu of the engine and empty the remains of the water from the boiler, leaving al filling caps only one turn open, to give the boiler breathing space. With that the session ends.

So if you want to play trains: electric or batterypower is sufficient and great. If you want to actually drive an engine, then live steam is the way to go. But they are worlds apart and both are a totally different approach on the same hobby imho, not being able to be compared with eachother..
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Re: Why Live Steam?

Post by ge_rik » Sun Jan 14, 2018 9:14 am

daan wrote: โ†‘Sun Jan 14, 2018 9:07 am Untill my live steam loco's I was "playing trains". Sitting on the side, turning a wheel or pushing a lever, and the train in front of me would start to run. Whatever train was on the track, the same simple procedure would get anything to live, even 2 or 3 trains at the same time.

With live steam, it's like prepairing a ritual. You need to prepare the engine, clean it, lubricate it, fill her up with water, fuel and light her fire. then you check the noise. Do I still hear the rumbling noise in her belly, or is it hissing again? Then wait for the pressuregauge to start floating on it's scale.

After a while she's blowing off and you need to turn the gas low. With a lever in the locomotive I select the direction and feel the light shudder in the little engine of steam starting to push the pistons. Then with another lever I can choose the amount of steam to the pistons and by doing that she starts rumbling along, spitting hot water from the chimney, like the dragon spits her fire.

After a round on the railwayline, the cylinders have heated up and I can close the regulator a bit, causing the oil to drip down in the chimney and burn in the firetube, causing blue smoke and the distinct smell of steamoil. As she rumbles along with her train, the engine wiggles slightly in the rythm of her cylinderstrokes, chuffing and leaving a plume of hot smoke in the air above her.

No way I can control 2 or even 3 engines at the same time. Her flamboyant character needs constant attention, regulating steam and gas, checking the waterlevel, until a sudden drop in power and a following plume of blue smoke attents on the end of the gas supply, then I need to get the regulator open and try to squeeze out the last bits of steam to get her and her train into the next station when possible, or past that difficult to reacht corner in the layout.

Then, when finished running, drain the hot lubricator, clean the spilt oil and steam residu of the engine and empty the remains of the water from the boiler, leaving al filling caps only one turn open, to give the boiler breathing space. With that the session ends.

So if you want to play trains: electric or batterypower is sufficient and great. If you want to actually drive an engine, then live steam is the way to go. But they are worlds apart and both are a totally different approach on the same hobby imho, not being able to be compared with eachother..
That's poetic

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Re: Why Live Steam?

Post by Tag Gorton » Sun Jan 14, 2018 9:59 am

I certainly don't see your posts as knocking live steam and indeed in many areas we think the same. For instance both of us like to run our trains through a proper scale infrastructure. My whole (admittedly small) back garden is 16mm scale (other than a removable washing whirly) including miniature trees cultivated over many years. I have several pet hates when it comes to steam locomotion and one of them is seeing trains run without at least a driver. Most of mine are modified to fit a full footplate crew. I also am not keen on those huge 3/4in pressure gauges and all mine are changed to half inch jobbies located on the back of the spectacle plate. The very simplified body shells of Roundhouse generic locos make me want to alter and adjust and I add and modify both to improve appearance and function. For instance I have an Accucraft Mk 1 Ragleth that has RC whistle and draincocks, working spectacles and a near empty cab with plenty of room for footplate crew. The locomotive also has many cosmetic improvements in terms of believable detail. I spent some months working on this comparatively cheap locomotive and am now very pleased with the results. All my locomotives get this sort of treatment and all have at least a working whistle in terms of functioning improvements. Other peeves are fast running (this is the narrow gauge) and trains running with safeties blasting off!!

In terms of my own railway, my small garden seriously limits what I could do in terms of proper train working and indeed it really is a 'watching the trains go by' enterprise. I have run on lines with full signalling and indeed have tried timetabled running under steam. Now actually this can work very well, however the main requirement here is that each steam locomotive must have a driver and each signal box a signaller, which sort of precludes regular timetabled running and owners of such a narrow gauge enterprise under steam will tend to run trains ad hoc if there are only a couple of attendees. Now, while I subscribe to the dictum that garden railways are like sex (best enjoyed in the company of at least one other person) it is rare that enough people who are at home with that particular fully signalled railway are gathered together to run as desired...

I moved into the garden for steam power. it is as simple as that. I do like things to run under the power that the prototype runs under. For instance I do like trams running under the wires - they even sound like the prototype. Also I am still waiting for a decent live diesel โ€“ and it will come! Now Rik, one thing does baffle me. I have run indoor layouts of course, but if a model railway is track powered then I don't understand why one would want to leave the confines of the central heating to run trains! I run trains in the winter (the steam effects cab be glorious) but otherwise as far as I can see, the only other reason for moving outside is lack of a reasonably sized spare room! I would reiterate, that however we do it, this is a pleasurable hobby and a comparatively broad church.
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Re: Why Live Steam?

Post by FWLR » Sun Jan 14, 2018 10:43 am

I really donโ€™t care how locos are run and if things look out of place, so what. Most donโ€™t run either live or battery so we can please otherโ€™s, itโ€™s ourselves who are happiest when we run our locoโ€™s, if you had a mirror in front of you and you could see your reflection, you would probably have the widest smile you would ever likely to see.... :thumbright: :thumbright:

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Re: Why Live Steam?

Post by ge_rik » Sun Jan 14, 2018 11:17 am

Tag Gorton wrote: โ†‘Sun Jan 14, 2018 9:59 am I certainly don't see your posts as knocking live steam and indeed in many areas we think the same. For instance both of us like to run our trains through a proper scale infrastructure. My whole (admittedly small) back garden is 16mm scale (other than a removable washing whirly) including miniature trees cultivated over many years. I have several pet hates when it comes to steam locomotion and one of them is seeing trains run without at least a driver. Most of mine are modified to fit a full footplate crew. I also am not keen on those huge 3/4in pressure gauges and all mine are changed to half inch jobbies located on the back of the spectacle plate. The very simplified body shells of Roundhouse generic locos make me want to alter and adjust and I add and modify both to improve appearance and function. For instance I have an Accucraft Mk 1 Ragleth that has RC whistle and draincocks, working spectacles and a near empty cab with plenty of room for footplate crew. The locomotive also has many cosmetic improvements in terms of believable detail. I spent some months working on this comparatively cheap locomotive and am now very pleased with the results. All my locomotives get this sort of treatment and all have at least a working whistle in terms of functioning improvements. Other peeves are fast running (this is the narrow gauge) and trains running with safeties blasting off!!
I can see the attraction of making modifications to any off the shelf model - regardless of whether it's live steam or electrically powered. Makes them personal.
Tag Gorton wrote: โ†‘Sun Jan 14, 2018 9:59 am In terms of my own railway, my small garden seriously limits what I could do in terms of proper train working and indeed it really is a 'watching the trains go by' enterprise. I have run on lines with full signalling and indeed have tried timetabled running under steam. Now actually this can work very well, however the main requirement here is that each steam locomotive must have a driver and each signal box a signaller, which sort of precludes regular timetabled running and owners of such a narrow gauge enterprise under steam will tend to run trains ad hoc if there are only a couple of attendees. Now, while I subscribe to the dictum that garden railways are like sex (best enjoyed in the company of at least one other person) it is rare that enough people who are at home with that particular fully signalled railway are gathered together to run as desired...
Must admit that I quite like doing my own thing (Garden Railwaywise, I hasten to add!!). That's probably why I favour electric power - I can happily have four or five locos 'in steam', switching my attention between them. So far, I've only had one visitor who seemed interested in operating my timetable / freight management approach with me - and he came from New Zealand. Maybe I should put an ad in the SMT lonely hearts column....
Tag Gorton wrote: โ†‘Sun Jan 14, 2018 9:59 am I moved into the garden for steam power. it is as simple as that. I do like things to run under the power that the prototype runs under. For instance I do like trams running under the wires - they even sound like the prototype. Also I am still waiting for a decent live diesel โ€“ and it will come! Now Rik, one thing does baffle me. I have run indoor layouts of course, but if a model railway is track powered then I don't understand why one would want to leave the confines of the central heating to run trains! I run trains in the winter (the steam effects cab be glorious) but otherwise as far as I can see, the only other reason for moving outside is lack of a reasonably sized spare room! I would reiterate, that however we do it, this is a pleasurable hobby and a comparatively broad church.
It was certainly the space that attracted me to the garden - the fulfilment of my long-term desire to build a complete light railway system (even the loft wasn't big enough for that). I abandoned track power pretty quickly in favour of battery power - too much hassle cleaning track and trying to maintain electrical continuity.

I've now come to appreciate that the main motivating factor for a lot of garden railway modellers is steam (somewhat impractical indoors for the majority). I suppose my motivation has always been to run a complete railway system - I don't think it's latent megalomania.

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Re: Why Live Steam?

Post by ge_rik » Sun Jan 14, 2018 1:06 pm

Tag Gorton wrote: โ†‘Sun Jan 14, 2018 9:59 am Now Rik, one thing does baffle me. I have run indoor layouts of course, but if a model railway is track powered then I don't understand why one would want to leave the confines of the central heating to run trains! I run trains in the winter (the steam effects cab be glorious) but otherwise as far as I can see, the only other reason for moving outside is lack of a reasonably sized spare room! I would reiterate, that however we do it, this is a pleasurable hobby and a comparatively broad church.
Something else which occurred to me while I was just taking my aged ma out for a coffee - the other reason is that I have always wanted to build an outdoor railway. Ever since I read about Don Neale's magnificent 7mm garden railway and Peter Denny's Trepolpen Light Railway in Railway Modeller in the 1960s and 70s, I've hankered after building an outdoor railway. I even experimented with a short length of 00 track around the fish pond in my parents' garden but quickly realised it was impractical.

There's something very satisfying about seeing a mixed goods train threading its way through real foliage and running beside real moving water. I much prefer the outdoors to being closeted away inside and, these days, it's a lot easier on the eyesight and for my stubby fingers to be fettling 16mm scale bits and bobs than 00n3 or 009.

I started with 45mm off the shelf models for convenience when I was holding down a very time consuming full time job but very quickly started bashing, kit-building and scratch-building as I wanted a UK based railway (Accucraft hadn't started producing their models when I started). But timetabled train services and believable freight handling were very high on my agenda (always have been, even when modelling indoors).

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Re: Why Live Steam?

Post by IrishPeter » Sun Jan 14, 2018 2:09 pm

One of the 'givens' when I started the original outdoor line was it would not be track power, even though that is the dominant method in the USA. At the time I lived in a pine forest, and they are very promiscuous about dripping resin all over everything, so the prospect of scraping that off the track sort of loaded the dice against track power. Also the prospect of laying additional cabling to alleviate voltage drop, etc., etc.. In short - too much pain; not enough gain. I was looking mainly at battery electric in the early planning stages, but then I built an Accucraft 'Ruby' from a kit, so we ended up with Ga. 1 steam as one aspect of what I was doing. The Skebawn and Castleknox was born shortly thereafter. This has now morphed into live steam in the basement, though there is a little black "diesel" that gets a lot of use when I just want to do some shunting in among other things.

I also have a bit of a thing for 2'6"/760mm/750mm gauge railways, mainly thanks to a fascination with Calthrop's ideas regarding Light Railways, and the Sierra Leone system. A couple of times the old line nearly morphed from Fn3 to SM45 to accommodate this, but the decision was made quite quickly when I got here that two small lines were more practical than one big one, which opened the door for exploring this side of the hobby. The suitable space for an outdoor line is limited due to the slope on the garden, which was handy for Jubal Early, but is a pain in my behind when it comes to a railway. Even in the limited area that is flat enough the gradients were such that timetable running with live steam would probably be problematical. The kettles therefore are confined to the basement, and the outdoor line follows a different line of attack.

I am also into operations which is why the third version of the track plan for the Coverdale Light Railway was designed with timetable running in mind, though I doubt there is another Ga.0/13.5mm scale nutter within 300 miles of here. The sneaky turn-back through Middleham allows trains from both Leyburn and Coverdale to go clockwise around the railway before crossing and going to the opposite terminus. It was one of those ideas that came to me after a couple halves of Devil's Backbone Danzig Porter, though I am sure I have seen it in many another track plan without necessarily twigging that was what it was for! Multiple train operation with steam is out, but I should be able to run a timetable with a couple of battery diesels without too much in the way of brain cramps, or rear end collisions.

I have certainly learned a lot from the folks on here - especially, it seems from those whose approach is very different to mine. The more model engineering orientated guys like LNR sort of push me to do better; Rik is a great advocate for battery-electric and radio control, and the railway through the landscape approach; Brian's old railway, the Mid-Derbys was a constant inspiration in the early days of the Skebawn and Castleknox; and I share a couple of Tag's pet peeves. And there are many others...

Thanks, guys!
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Traffic Pattern? What pattern? Spuds out; grain in, but cattle, sheep and passengers are a lot less predictable.

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Re: Why Live Steam?

Post by ge_rik » Sun Jan 14, 2018 3:31 pm

IrishPeter wrote: โ†‘Sun Jan 14, 2018 2:09 pm I have certainly learned a lot from the folks on here - especially, it seems from those whose approach is very different to mine. The more model engineering orientated guys like LNR sort of push me to do better; Rik is a great advocate for battery-electric and radio control, and the railway through the landscape approach; Brian's old railway, the Mid-Derbys was a constant inspiration in the early days of the Skebawn and Castleknox; and I share a couple of Tag's pet peeves. And there are many others...

Thanks, guys!
Peter in Va
Hi Peter
Thanks for putting me among such illustrious company - I feel honoured (and more than a little daunted by the sense of responsibility).

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Re: Why Live Steam?

Post by Tag Gorton » Sun Jan 14, 2018 3:55 pm

Ah the Trepolpen. I went down to Truro to see Peter Denny quite a few years ago to write an article about his garden railway for Model Railway Enthusiast. Absolutely fascinating and I know that the local 9 Gauge group used to visit regularly for running days when every signal box was manned. Mind the most interesting part of the visit was to see the indoor model Buckingham Great Central working. He had a sort of clockwork computer that he used to replace his son Crispin after the latter left home. One really interesting bit was to see the slip coaches in action. These had a flywheel inside and the express would speed through and leave the slip coach to trundle into the platform...
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Re: Why Live Steam?

Post by artfull dodger » Sun Jan 14, 2018 4:35 pm

I have found the solution to nice slow running on a small railway, a Roundhouse engine with its rock solid dependable design, combined with the SSP Slomo inertia device. Even in manual control, my Billy is as sedate and well behaved as a geared model, yet he looks like a normal side rod model to the casual observer. Only at high speeds(not prototypical narrow gauge speed mind you) does gear noise from the Slomo become really audable. The Slomo gives Billy the mass of the real model that does not scale down in reality. He will drift just as a real engine will when the throttle is closed. When you start out, just like a real engine, you open the throttle right up, then as he starts to move, close it right back down to nearly off. Billy will settle into a nice slow crawl thru the yard, then as we get out on the main, open up the throttle a bit more. I can then sit back and enjoy. No constant babysitting the throttle, I might stop once or twice to turn the gas down as the tank heats up and pressure rises. I can get nearly 30min runs out of my Billy with carefull gas control. With the Slomo I am not using up steam as fast as a model without the device. This extends the run just a bit. I also have engines fitted with onboard battery as some days, I do not wish to run live steam, or I am out of fuel and to tired to run out to the store for more. I think most railways have both battery powered models and live steamers. If you keep on top of your daily chores with a live steamer, the amount of prep time before and after doesn't really take that long at all. Some of the desire for live steam is the whole ambience it creates, the smells and sounds of a living steam railway. No battery train can do that

Mike the Aspie
Silly NT's.....I have Asperger's Syndrome!

invicta280
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Re: Why Live Steam?

Post by invicta280 » Sun Jan 14, 2018 5:14 pm

Tag Gorton wrote: โ†‘Sun Jan 14, 2018 3:55 pm Mind the most interesting part of the visit was to see the indoor model Buckingham Great Central working.
I'm quite envious Tag
I still have the copy of Railway Modeller featuring Buckingham Central that I bought in New Zealand as a teenager all those years back. I was knocked out by the quality of the modelling and the sheer elegance of it. Even now, if someone mentions the Great Central Rlwy I get a mental picture of the terminus at Buckingham GC or Grandborough Jnctn.

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Re: Why Live Steam?

Post by ge_rik » Sun Jan 14, 2018 5:34 pm

invicta280 wrote: โ†‘Sun Jan 14, 2018 5:14 pm
Tag Gorton wrote: โ†‘Sun Jan 14, 2018 3:55 pm Mind the most interesting part of the visit was to see the indoor model Buckingham Great Central working.
I'm quite envious Tag
I still have the copy of Railway Modeller featuring Buckingham Central that I bought in New Zealand as a teenager all those years back. I was knocked out by the quality of the modelling and the sheer elegance of it. Even now, if someone mentions the Great Central Rlwy I get a mental picture of the terminus at Buckingham GC or Grandborough Jnctn.
Ditto - plus the chance to see one of the versions of the Trepolpen LR

Rik
ps Maybe I need to develop an Automatic Crispin to help with my running sessions. I suspect that my interest in the operational aspects of running a railway may well have been inspired by the Reverend gent
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Re: Why Live Steam?

Post by ge_rik » Sun Jan 14, 2018 5:47 pm

artfull dodger wrote: โ†‘Sun Jan 14, 2018 4:35 pm No constant babysitting the throttle, I might stop once or twice to turn the gas down as the tank heats up and pressure rises. I can get nearly 30min runs out of my Billy with carefull gas control.

Mike the Aspie
Hi Mike
I hadn't realised a Slomo would increase running time. An added bonus.

Rik
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