Live Steam

[Anonymous]

how receptive are any of you to the possibility of operating an o guage live steam locomotive from any mainstream manufactuer (MTH, Lionel, Williams, etc) and if you could and wanted to own one, how much would you pay for it. I was really excited when I learned that hornby www.hornbyrailways.com/pages/livestm_live.aspx had made a live steam model in HO scale (OO in Britain), and started thinking about the possibility of producing affordable models in O scale. Of course I don't even know if it would work with the third rail, but I think it would be neat, how about you?

[lionelsoni]

British OO is actually a larger scale than HO--76 rather than 87 to 1--but runs on 16.5 millimeter HO track. I don't see how the third rail could matter, one way or the other.

[Anonymous]

ive seen electric fired small steamers ...which would utilize the third rail...

i for one would not want any livesteamer running on my indoor layout.... too many things can happen w open flames, high heat, and volitile layout materials............outside track than yes.

most small live steamers run on either alcohol or Butane... whats gonna happen when u get a derailment where u caNT quickly get to it and you have open flames and or very high temps?

for what it would prolly cost.... you could double that and buy a used coal fired locomotive you can actually ride on!!

[Anonymous]

I owned and operated Large Scale (#1 gauge) live steamers in the past (Roundhouse Engineering and Accucraft, both of which ran outdoors), but that's about as small as I would want to go with live steam.

They are definitely more well-suited for outdoor operation (and on a layout that has an elevated section of track, at that), but I know that in Europe and Great Britain a number of hobbyists operate live steam in the smaller scales, including O.

As litigation-happy as this society of ours is, I seriously doubt that you'll see any of the U.S. manufacturers of O gauge venture into live steam. It would be a very small market with too many risks involved.

[dougdagrump]

Allan makes a good point. The operating instructions would only be a few pages but the legal disclaimers would end up being comparable in size to "War and Peace". [:D]

[daan]

In Europe, we also have B engines of barely 8cm (3 inches) in h0 running on live steam. Electrically heated and with a simgle oscillating piston, looking like a "glaskasten" or other small O&K steamer (Ohrenstein&Koppel, a germal engine builder who made all kinds of small steamswitchers, short O&K)
The British live steamer in 00 is only one of the many, but this time under the flag of a big brand.
It has disadvantages, and big ones! Speed is not regulatable as we are used to with electric operated trains, it puts out a lot of water (moisture) and grease in that amount that your scenery is getting ruined and it can't really pull a train.
Live steam is something for a garden railroad, where you have wide curves and nice even track to keep the speed. A few miles away from here, they have a 7,5" track for life steamers and that's where lifesteam really gets worth it.
Steam only works when it can get sufficient pressure and heat. The heat and pressure are the motive power, so with the 1.5 bar pressure of small steamers you can't get anything going seriously. Those bigger ones use 5-7 bar and the engine needs to heat up like a big steamer. When heated up in an hour or so, they have to drain the water from everywhere it condensed in while heating up and oil the engine. Only after a preperation of a few hours those machines are ready to use and can pull a nice amount of cars. But they wheigh a lot. A small 0-4-0 tankengine is about 400kg's on that scale.
I doubt that anything in the really small segment like 0 or h0 is operating well with live steam, simply because it lacks the weight and the heat to power up seriously..

[MikeSanta]

Years ago in Dallas someone went to the shows with a live steam engine for O gauge for about $150 which ran on alcohol and sugar cubes. I didn't buy it because of safety reasons on an indoor layout: you just cranked the engine up and it ran until it stopped. I wish now I had one to run on an outdoor layout where that's less of a hassle. In Garden Railways a while back they had an article on live steam engines for O gauge: they cost from $600 to $1200 and they're radio controlled, so it's not like having an uncontrolled bomb on your layout. I'd still only have to run them outside, however. The ones that run on electric power have a heating element in them which boils the water for the steam,so you can control them on a layout. However, that's NOT real live steam.

[lionelsoni]

Mike, there is a prototype for everything:
http://www.dself.dsl.pipex.com/MUSEUM/LOCOLOCO/swisselec/swisselc.htm

[FJ and G]

While Allan is correct about live steam being best suited to outdoors, I believe that the Hornby model is made to run indoors and the "pollution" consists of steam rather than smoke, as water is heated via an electronic process, not fossil fuel.

If the device could be remotey controlled, it would mean you wouldn't have to worry about track wiring or clean tracks too. Furthermore, a steam generating device could also, theoretically, be used for diesel operation as well.

It will all happen in a matter of time. Just how long is open to debate.

[daan]

Just a nice link to live steamers: http://www.panyo.com/dh2002/locos.htm
Found it while loking for model crampton engines..

[webenda]

http://www.yesteryeartoys.com/cgi-local/toycatalog.cfm?list=3
Kits or ready to run live steam, some for O track.
How about using the parts from a kit to convert MTH, Lionel, Williams, etc.?