Real steam engine

[Anonymous]

I may be talking crazy but I was looking through a scientifics mag and came accross a small working steam engine.  Well I got to thinking and it seems like someone could make a scale steam engine that would work on a layout.  It seems like you could use the power picked up from the track to heat a boiler (much like heating a smoke unit) and use steam to actually power the loco.  I have not idea, there may be working locos out there or it may be crazy talk but wouldn't that be cool?

[RR Redneck]

That would be so awesome.

[oscaletrains]

havent you guys EVER herd of live steam go to welesco.com they have g scale live steam loco kit and their is also a company that makes a oscale locomotive kit live steam you two do me a favor go to google and type in live steam and click on some links

p.s. their exspensive, cheapest ive seen is $500.00  

[Roger Bielen]

willy 1094 - I'm not sure if the power available through the track would be sufficient to generate enough steam to sustain operation of an engine.  There are engines on the market that are steam powered with steam generated by burning a fuel.  I don't know what they burn but the last ad I saw said it would run 15 min. on one fueling.  I believe most of these are of European manufacture.

 

[RR Redneck]

oscaletrains, I am very well aware of live steam trains, I was agreeing with willy here on a g scale tracked powered live steamer.

[oscaletrains]

yeah i know ive seen trak powered locos at train shows and if you put enough voltage on the tracks it will heat the boiler like a sodering iron on a wet sponge it creates steam.

 

[daan]

Hornby makes a live steamer in h0 the way you described it. The boiler is heated by an element and the speed is regulated by a servo connected the steamdome.

Beware though, live steam means a lot of moisture! They all have a big disadvantage and that is their size. A normalk engine in the 1:1 scale is massive, it doesn't loose heat quickly because of the surface heated by the fire is much bigger then the surface where it cooles off (outside walls of the boiler.)

The smaller you engine gets, the bigger that surface will be and the less sufficient it will work. Simple said, it has problems keeping heated enough to keep evaporating water.

[RR Redneck]

Huh, big advances in HO since I have been out.

[tintrax]

There must be some members of this forum who run 0 gauge live steam.   Steam was at its greatest popularity about 100 years ago, but never died out completely.   Scale type models have been made, and still are, but the simpler live steam toy type locos are what I have - seven of them.  All run OK, and do get to be run from time to time.  Last one I ran was an 80 years old Bing - ran with absolutely no problems.    Maybe it lacks the scale type appearance of current production toy trains, but it has one great feature - it is driven by real steam!

Colin Duthie

[thor]

Live steam is huge fun and can easily be done in O gauge, as Daan points out, Hornby makes an HO steamer that runs well and I'd love one but O gauge is much easier, you could probably easily build your own by either buying a Mamod stationary oscillating engine or building it yourself.   Live steam is, however, hot, oily and messy as you'll find out if you buy one, the best way to get started is to get a stationary engine and study it, there are trains in that size for sale too, I can find you links.  Beware its easy to get seduced by the dark side!