A few years ago one of the ”layouts” in MR was a large 7 1/2“ gauge pike in Michigan if I recall correctly. I though it was weird that it was in MR, which usually focuses on smaller scales. I don’t know how much Live Steam appears in Garden Railways, but a few glances at their website looks to me like they rarely cover it if at all. There is one Live Steam magazine, called “Live Steam and Outdoor Railroading”, but it’s not made by Kalmbach. I would welcome a bit of live steam from time to time in MR but I’m sure a lot of folks would find it strange.
Regards, Isaac
I model my railroad and you model yours! I model my way and you model yours!
Steven Otte Though discussion is not as busy there as it is here, you may find more people who follow that particular branch of the hobby in our sister forum, Garden Railways. darn it, even I can't make that link "live"... go here:http://cs.trains.com/grw/f/91.aspx
Though discussion is not as busy there as it is here, you may find more people who follow that particular branch of the hobby in our sister forum, Garden Railways.
darn it, even I can't make that link "live"... go here:http://cs.trains.com/grw/f/91.aspx
Good idea Steve! Nonetheless I think it would be interesting to keep this conversation on the MR forums, I want to see how much overlap there is between Live Steam and smaller scale model railroading. May head over to garden railways if I get the urge...
There is a live steam club southwest of St. Missouri.
Wabash, Frisco and Pacific Railroad Association
Marlon
See pictures of the Clinton-Golden Valley RR
Model Railroader up to and during the Linn Westcott era used to carry a fair amount of coverage about "live steam" sized trains (3/4" scale, 1" scale, 1 1/2" scale and so on -- referred to as live steam commonly even if there is no steam). Indeed a fair number of MR covers showed such large scale trains. I can't speak for the Garden Railways forum, but the magazine carries little or nothing about these trains, which when well done they have more in common with scale model railroading than with garden railroads, in my opinion. The Milwaukee Light Engineering Society "layout" for example has sidings and a signal system and the members have even had operating sessions in the "model railroad" sense of the word.
http://www.mlesrr.org/MLES_Site/explore_mles/about_mles.php
Dave Nelson
--Steven Otte, Model Railroader senior associate editorsotte@kalmbach.com
F.Y.I I also do 7 1/2 inch gauge (I think). It’s about the best scale, large enough to ride but not so large that it’s overly expensive.
Wow, that’s some nice F units. It’s difficult to get the perfect F unit nose, a lot of bad models out their. Yours look quite nice, not perfect (non are) but I’ve seen a lot worse! That Chessie geez is nice too!
I used to.
Kids grew up and weren't interested, got to be too much to maintain, a buyer came along at the right time.
F7_Inch-half4 by Edmund, on Flickr
It WAS fun while it lasted (late '70s - early 1980s)
F7_Inch-half5 by Edmund, on Flickr
Ours was 1.6" scale, 7 ½" gauge.
Chessie8550 by Edmund, on Flickr
Had a couple friends with live steam but I never had the time or money to build anything like that. There were quite a few club layouts in NE Ohio.
Thank You, Ed
The topic of live steam came up on another thread, which got me wondering, does anyone on the MR forums do live steam or other outdoor, ride on model trains
Often at Train Mountain (were I run 1:8 scale stuff) the topic of smaller scales of model railroading comes up so I know overlap exists. Still I expect many have never heard of the live steam hobby.
Feel free to respond with how much you’ve heard of live steam. Do you have any locomotive/rolling stock? Are you building something or would you ever build something?