Thread: Calling all steam railway fanatics!

G'day All. I stumbled across this thread and thought you might be interested in the project I have been working on for a while now, 12 years actually...

She is an 040 tank loco, 7 and a 1/4 Gauge called Hercules.

With the following
> Steel Briggs boiler
> 11 liter capacity
> 18 number 5/8 diameter fire tubes
> 2 injectors for boiler water feed (yet to be made)
> 2" diameter pistons
> Slide valves
> Walschaerts valve gear
> 1150 hours spent to date on its construction
> All the rivets are real! 3 months it took to do the water tanks in my spare time
> Raw casting were used for the wheels and cylinders, all other parts were made from scratch

If I was to do one again I would build something bigger, I found the smaller work quite difficult. There is the same amount of work if its a 3 and 1/2 inch Gauge or a 12 inch Gauge loco and with a 12 inch model you can by the plumbing fittings from Reece! Making plumbing unions 1/4 inch and 40 TPI is a pain, not to mention tapping 12BA threads...

It takes 5% skills and 95% motivation to make something like this, and the motivation is hard to find some times. You just have to make each piece, celebrate and go on to the next







Boiler plates in construction




Cheers Simon

Originally Posted by VK3UTE

G'day All. I stumbled across this thread and thought you might be interested in the project I have been working on for a while now, 12 years actually...

She is an 040 tank loco, 7 and a 1/4 Gauge called Hercules.

With the following
> Steel Briggs boiler
> 11 liter capacity
> 18 number 5/8 diameter fire tubes
> 2 injectors for boiler water feed (yet to be made)
> 2" diameter pistons
> Slide valves
> Walschaerts valve gear
> 1150 hours spent to date on its construction
> All the rivets are real! 3 months it took to do the water tanks in my spare time
> Raw casting were used for the wheels and cylinders, all other parts were made from scratch

If I was to do one again I would build something bigger, I found the smaller work quite difficult. There is the same amount of work if its a 3 and 1/2 inch Gauge or a 12 inch Gauge loco and with a 12 inch model you can by the plumbing fittings from Reece! Making plumbing unions 1/4 inch and 40 TPI is a pain, not to mention tapping 12BA threads...

It takes 5% skills and 95% motivation to make something like this, and the motivation is hard to find some times. You just have to make each piece, celebrate and go on to the next







Boiler plates in construction




Cheers Simon

I stock 1/4" x 40 taps and dies. The fuel needle in pre-war Schebler carburettors on US motor cycles is one usage. Bruce Gardner, B.S.F. Bolts in Melbourne has a full range of BA taps and dies including some left hand. He also has BSF, BSC, BA nuts and bolts.

VK3UTE.
That is a great looking loco Simon, very envious!!! Very similar to the engine that I am going to build first. From the book " Steam trains in your garden". Now all I have to do is convince the minister for war and finance to let me buy a lathe and a mill/drill!!!!
Regards
Robbo

Thanks Robbo.

Have a look on line at the Simplex designs, they are an 060 but you can get heaps of casting which saves on machining time. The cylinders and wheels I used are from the simplex. Good machinery will last a life time if looked after so it's worth the investment! (Handy for working on the landy too)
I must finish it soon, I haven't done a thing on it for two years having kids slowed things down. I recon I have about 300 hours to go, she runs on compressed air so just the plumbing, firebox, boiler lagging and paint to go...


Cheers Simon.

Simon
Very impressive and I can see a labour of love in the making!

You know you steam model engineers have a lot to answer for!

Going way back when growing up in England, I was about 8 years old when I accompanied a boy in the same street to go down town on the bus to buy some butter. To save on the bus fare given to us we decided to walk the 5 miles home. On the way we passed the local swimming baths who were running a model engineering exhibition, it was a Saturday afternoon.
Being snot nosed kids we scrounged our way in for free!

Once inside looking at the live steam exhibits I was hooked, totally mesmerized in fact. I got talking to this guy who had made from scratch a scale replica of an early US locomotive like this.
1855 by Rogers & Ketchum Loco Works:-

Locomotive General Civil War Museum Interactive Tour – Frequently Asked Questions!
There it was all steamed up and running on an indoor track, bloody marvelous!

Then another of the Flying Scotsman running on rollers! Very impressive!
From then on I was hooked on things mechanical we stayed there until we were booted out.

We both got home in the dark, the local cops were looking for us reported as lost and the butter had melted into my friend's pocket--but we had fun!

From then on it was the magazine the Model Engineer I got every month, instead of the Eagle comic and tales of British daring do!

Years later working for a local authority I even passed my road roller test (Class 8) using the County owned preserved Aveling Porter steam roller in Bourton on the Water in my native Gloucestershire.

Years roll on, married and living in Colorado, I take my American wife and young kids over to England staying with my brother who lives near Frampton upon Severn.
After a late Sunday morning in the pub I borrowed a bike to pedal off a guts full of beer. With the promise that I would be back for an extended family visit to a steam fair on the village green.

Wending my way down the back lanes I came came across a bloke with a Burrell traction engine stalled in the road; the owner had lost his head of steam.
Taking a look I said Oh your fire's all to cock mate!--"here lets have a go"! After some shoveling and raking! & after a "few", we got some steam. I bunged the bike on the tender, and being properly licensed we set off for the steam fair--totally forgetting my family commitments!

As we approached to fair site, I then saw my wife and kids on the side of the road--Crikey I had totally forgotten them!
My eldest daughter who was about 4 at the time spotted me first ,"Hey there's pappy", waving frantically!
I could see my brother and his missus totally gob smacked, and lip reading I could make out "what the---are you up to"?

My missus of course just shook her head as if to say I'm married to a crazy Limey waddah yah expect!
Nah luv steam power its infectious!
Dennis
zedcars

One of my customers is building this. The photos were taken in 2005. It is now almost finished. It is a South Australian Railways main line loco and the builder says it was the biggest one they used. He was apprenticed to SAR as a toolmaker in the 1930's. He is but a boy of 94.

Workmanship is immaculate. He did full scale drawings before starting and these are works of art.

Another customer had two 7.25" gauge locos but had a busy job and a young family then and not enough time to play with the locos. He sold them and I was quite staggered at the price obtained.

He then commenced building a 15" gauge loco like your "General", an American Wild West woodburner.

Twenty-five years later he is retired and lives on 40 acres near Beaudesert. The loco is almost finished. He has acquired a big heap of ex sugar mill tramline and is going to have his own track to run his loco on. No worries about club officials and infighting.

Brian
I like his workmanship and the boiler?? WOW!
Very nice!
These skills are disappearing, and most of the young guys I employ don't even have an iota of an idea what is involved in learning skills like this.
Love to meet that bloke, I admire old school skill and endeavor.
Thanks for posting that.
Really nice!

For more relevant info as I have a "remaining foot" in South America there has been a bit of a revival of steam down there.
Equador not short of an idea to generate tourist revenue, has revived its old Yankee locomotives for trips up the Andean Cordillera. The President re-inaugurate one such system recently and so did Morales of Bolivia.
I rode the one in Equador up the Devils Nose not so long ago.

Now I read that Peru is doing the same to get to the Matchu Pitchu. So is Costa Rica from San Jose to the Pacific Coast.
(Note the ingenious way of stair stepping up to the summit of the Nariz de Diablo .)
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uyYQla_JdaE&lc=3Tjjv5Ls-8GfcgOIPAsyNHkB0MgMSAq2_NLcRFlkoJA"]Tren al Cielo 2010 (ECUADOR) - YouTube[/ame]

Dennis

Originally Posted by zedcars

(Note the ingenious way of stair stepping up to the summit of the Nariz de Diablo .)
Tren al Cielo 2010 (ECUADOR) - YouTube

Dennis

The same system is used on the Zig Zag Railway in the Blue Mountains.

Zig Zag Railway - Blue Mountains Premier Tourist Attraction