Garden Railway Forum

As the Aster Schools I had purchased did not play well on the curves of the portable layout our group uses at steam up. It was sold/traded for a nice old LGB/Aster Frank S and some $$ that I used to get a Bassett Lowke Super Enterprise to start up my O scale tinplate railway project. Gonna be a week or so till it arrives from the UK, however Frankie arrived in today's post. Already cleaned up, missing lantern lenses replaced with ones the previous owner turned up on his lathe. Lamps are already drilled out to accept LEDs and those will be added in due time. I also did the front trim rings in brass paint to give her the look of the electric version of this handsome engine. She steams well on blocks, will get some track time later this weekend if the weather behaves. Have family obligations for Easter tomorrow. I also added a fireman leaning on his shovel in the cab doorway, mounted with a screw up thru the footplate. Once I convert back to RC control, I will see about mounting an engineer on the other side. Need finger access to the reverse lever for now. Might also move the fuel tank to the cab with one of the Roundhouse upright tanks. Sure wish Finescale Engineering could still make the replacement tank they used to offer!! Yes I did check into it and they are unable to supply them anymore. Mike the Aspie

I could be Aspie too

Lovely loco, I have one, I've kept it stock, the weather is mild over here. I made a Goodall style top up valve for mine, I think it steamed for over an hour on a full tank of gas.

Frankie under steam this morning!

Very nice locomotive. I've heard that these are very reliable and they look great!

Thanks Daan, Aster definatly captured the "LGB" look very well. With all wheels insulated and deep flanges, Frank copes with R1 curves and more importantly the turnouts much better than even a Roundhouse does(shimming the guard/check rails solves this issue for the most part). Also looks spot on with the LGB European rolling stock be it wagons or coaching stock. I will be putting RC control back in this eventually, but for now he remains manual control.

Another picture taken just last weekend of Frank S in the engine house prior to the days steaming. I did reinstall the gunk tank as I was tired of the engine being covered in oil droplets after every run. While the chuff pipe directs it back down, there is a uptake deflector plate inside the smoke box to protect the upper headlight from the burner heat. This creates a strong updraft from the burner so the stuff "blows" up and out instead of down into the smoke box and out the bottom opening. Many gas fired engines vent the bulk of the burner heat downwards out the big opening at the bottom, vs up and out the chimney. When I had my Roundhouse Billy with the Slomo in it, you could see the heat wash over the top plate as it would condisate when running in the cold weather at that time. I could also feel it when steaming on blocks. And that is with a large diameter chimney and no chuff pipe partially obstructing the chimney. I will extend the gunk tanks exhaust pipe up into the chimney a bit to help keep the plume more visable.

That's a fine looking European engine.