Grand Scale Railroading

Glenn Brooks

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Seems there aren’t many forum members here who post about live steam miniature trains. If you are looking for a cool project to build in your home machine shop, you might consider building, or restoring a Live Steamer. The live steam hobby has grown substantially in the last few years. Quite a few vendors now sell castings and lots of specialized parts a Machinist needs to build a locomotive. Live steam clubs are active in every state and province in North America, and around the world. Most clubs have well developed 7 1/2” gauge railroads which you can run on. These are generally 1.5” to 2.5” scale (1/8th original size) and are designed and built to ride on.

My personal interest is 12” gauge. This is considered to be Grand Scale, or Park Gauge railroading. So named as these miniature trains were popular as commercial ride attractions in community parks at the turn of the century (1900).

Couple of years ago, I restored a 1950 Ottaway, a coal fired 4-4-0 locomotive, and built a small 500’ backyard railway to run it on. Have been adding to it, bit by bit, each year. Here’s a couple of pics of the mainline and my most recent maintenance project - rebuilding the Ottaway’s front end (smoke box) to improve drafting- so it makes steam more efficiently. The first photo shows the new, multi port, “Lempor” ejector nozzle that exhausts steam from the cylinders to draw exhaust gasses from the fire box out of front end. Also, the steam intake plumbing in the smoke box was corroded and failing from 70 years service, so replaced that as well. The piping you see delivers steam from the boiler into the cylinders, mounted below the smokebox on each side of the frame, then, once used, exhausts up into the Lempor ejector, and then blasts up into the petticoat and out the smoke stack. This blast creates a vacuum in the smokebox that draws air through the grates at the rear of the boiler, causing high levels of combustion on the bed of coal - which creates new steam in the boiler. sort of a perpetual motion machine... anyway its fascinating stuff, and interesting to build and maintain.

Particularily as a retirement hobby.

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I wonder at the use of what appears to be teflon tape on the pipe joints, seems like it would be a bit too hot for it. On the steam piping that I have done, I have used white lead, I have had no leaks, and I have been able to easily disassemble them later as required, this on lines up to 2 - 1/2" The steam piping at the sawmill where I volunteer was replaced at least 15 years ago, and a commercial pipe dope intended for the purpose was used, and when it was required to modify things, they could not be disassembled, even with red heat and 4 ft pipe wrenches. One such job was to install an emergency shut off valve on a line that went to the trim saw, which ran away twice due to governor issues, I had to race over 20 ft or so to close the throttle, while the engine was trying to explode or jump off its foundation, I was still shaking a half hour later, but no damage was done. Many a dull moment, punctuated by moments of sheer terror! To see the mill, Google "Sturgeon's Mill" or here is the website


Sturgeon's Mill
www.sturgeonsmill.com
 
Hi Benmychree,

The Teflon tape seems to hold up well. A lot depends on temperature. These miniature boilers usually operate at 125 -150 psi, depending on size. So in the smoke box, and intake lines, temps can range from 400* up tom1000* at the exhaust. Teflon is generally rated at around 1100*. So usually is OK. Interestingly, lot of builders are now using Teflon seals in their steam cylinders.

The larger scale steam equipment , such as the sawmill you mentioned, can be very interesting to work with! Always something to repair and maintain. Sometimes dodge, duck and cover! Maintenance and annual inspections are the key...

Glenn
 
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It looks like we may not run at all this year due to the virus, although a few of the guys are working on projects at the mill by themselves, largely, I really do miss the monthly work days, usually about 20 guys show up for various projects and great lunches. we generally have 4 run weekends during good weather and several special runs for private groups. I mainly run the engines, including a 30 HP horizontal Atlas engine that drives the head rig with 5 ft bottom saw and smaller top saw, another horizontal engine of perhaps 20 HP that drives the 4 saw edger, and a 4 X 5 engine that drives the trim saw ( the engine that ran away twice). I also do any and all machine work needed and babbiting.
 
I restore models too. 12" to the foot scale :)

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Haven't seen the old girl or the team for a few months due to covid, but can't wait to get back to it.

Have you read Jos Koopmans' PhD thesis on loco draughting? This chap from Canada
Applied his work to great effect, and I've been involved with a project to fix faulty draughting on a mainline loco.

Romulus ejector
 
Lo FI, very cool. Yep, Covid knocked our work at the Hawaii Railway Society in the head also. I work (volunteer) in their backshops during the winter and had to cancel and return toWashington in early March. Got back just before the lockdown started.

Yes I based my design on Koopmans work. I bought a copy of his book on line, and actually emailed him and discussed it several times. Fascinating history of front end research. Seems like there is a lot more to the story than he was able to relate in his thesis. He lives in the Netherlands, and apparently is still active in live steam, although now in his 80’s. Mentioned he hadn’t really done much for the last few years.

Nigel Day, in U.K., is another guy who has done a lot of front end development work - implemented and refined Koopmans research and Portia’s ideas on several narrow gauge Tourist railways around the world. He helped a lot with the design on my 12” gauge loco.

Eng. Porta’s Design is supposed to produce 25 - 40% improvement in draft. Iam hoping to see that when I fire up my loco and start doing some tests in a week or so. In the midst of replacing the floor in my tender at the moment. The steel on the bottom has corroded over halfway through the existing metal, so laying in some new heavy gauge sheet metal to renew the tank.
 

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I have been building live steam locomotives for over 40 years now and still learning. I have used glass filled Teflon seals for piston rings with terrific results using bronze liners pressed into the cylinder blocks. Currently I am building a Fitchburg Northern for 7-1/2" track gauge. It was my friend Marty's project that I was helping him with. Before Marty passed away last April and knew he had a very short time to live he gave the locomotive to me to finish. FN Brakes 634.JPGDY FN 100.jpg
 
Craig,
I have been fortunate to see Donald’s work.
I didn’t know it was possible to turn out such realistic, authentic scale components.
The first time I saw the model trains I thought it was a kit he was putting together.
Incredibly talented guys.
 
Don, beautiful engineering and machine work! I like your use of traditional bronze bearings on the driver axles. Also, are those brake cylinders mounted vertically at the rear of the frame? If so, likely steam brakes?

If you are interested in fitting a Lempor injector nozzle in the front end, I can send you the formulas and design comments I used to build my new one.

Very nice work!

Glenn
 
Who is Craig? as my wife would say, what a bozo butt.
Sorry Glenn
 
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