Stuff

[altivo]

Books arrived in the mail: Duncton Wood by William Horwood, and The Detroit, Toledo & Ironton Railroad by Scott Trostel.

Off cold meds for the last two days, but still feel as if I were taking them. Groggy, sleepy, out of it. Fortunately, not driving.

Red appears to agree with me. Aside from eating, he has been snoozing much of the day.

Comments

[hrrunka]

Model railways got a mention during this morning's radio club Net. One of the club's members had been along to the London Model Engineering Exhibition, and was telling us about an OO gauge live-steam locomotive. Apparently it uses the layout's electric power to generate steam, and is controlled by some sort of pulse signalling system. I wasn't sure it sounded like a particularly good idea, and I got the impression that it'd be a very expensive toy...

[altivo]

IIRC the OO gauge is similar to the US HO gauge, and I believe I've seen live steam samples in that size before. Typically they burn alcohol to make the steam, and are functionally pretty similar to the originals. I've definitely seen live steam locomotives in the larger G (Garden) scale. As the latter are normally operated outdoors, they are a bit more practical.

Drawing on the typical model railroad DC power supply to produce steam power sounds a bit impractical to me, though. The current demands would most likely overwhelm the supply and exceed the ratings of the track. Alcohol or oil burning models sound feasible, however. Building them to the tolerances needed for the tiny scales could be a challenge, but surely we have tools that are up to the task now.

[hrrunka]

I did a little googling, and search terms like "OO gauge live-steam model locomotive" did throw up a few hits including a Hornby "Flying Scotsman", but I didn't investigate further. I suspect at that scale you'd need to take the flash-boiler route. The more I think about it, the crazier it seems... ;)

[altivo]

Welllll, ya know, someone was bound to do it just to prove it could be done.

Like I'm planning to fill a passenger car with tiny furries and a wolf conductor, put myself in the locomotive cab, and a cute little fox hanging out of the post office/baggage car about to snag a mailbag... All must be sculpted in clay at about 1.2 cm high and then painted...

[altivo]

Aha. I'm guessing that the product discussed was this one, or a descendant from it:

http://www.scottpages.net/ReviewOfLiveSteam.html

Seven Amps of current in the rails is, err, scary. I think not. Apparently they adapted an immersion heater of some sort to boil the water. I still think an alcohol lamp would be more practical and have no more hazards or limitations than the approach Hornby took.

Actually, I don't need that particular degree of realism. With the digital controls and sound systems available today, you can get the sounds, and even the smoke and steam exhaust (or similation thereof,) without the accompanying hazards of the real thing.

[hrrunka]

It seems the Hornby live-steam locos do use a flash boiler, and require a particular 12-17V controller, at least partly because of the power required to generate the steam. There are dire warnings about putting other locos on track powered by the live-steam controllers. Presumably they'll smoke.. briefly...

N-gauge figures are ever so small! Good luck! ;)

[hrrunka]

Yep, that's the one. Pretty much pure unobtainium these days, it seems...

[altivo]

Oh? Maybe the company's liability lawyers offered some stern advice. I'm sure something of the sort would never be offered for sale in the US except as a possible terrorist action.

No matter how many warnings are printed, attached, painted on, and played aloud upon opening the box, in the US you could count on the lawsuits piling up from people who burned themselves, set fire to their houses, scorched their floors and carpets, etc.

I'm reminded of the model airplane with a real internal combustion engine that I won as a prize when I was about ten years old. That was when they were tethered by a long wire and you stood in the middle of a circle and flew them around the perimeter until you got dizzy and fell down or the engine ran out of fuel and crashed. Or whatever. In any case, my father being a mechanical engineer, looked the thing over and promised that "one day" we would take it out and fly it. That day never came, and eventually I forgot about it. I have no idea where it went, but I suspect it ultimately exited the house by way of the trash bin. ;p

[hrrunka]

I had a plane like that. I never did quite master the art of gentle landings, though, so it spent a lot of time being stuck back together...

[hrrunka]

I suspect it might have had more to do with high price and poor performance. That review pointed out that the power was just enough to move the train on the level, and that even a 1% slope meant throttle changes were needed, so it was tricky to drive, and limited the layout in ways the kind of serious modeller likely to buy the beast probably wouldn't want to accept...

[altivo]

Yes. I've seen live steam used at something like a 1:16 scale, and at that size it is workable. Suitable for a garden railroad setting, anyway. My friends who have operated real steam locomotives tell me that the throttle controls are difficult to move and have a delayed response not unsimilar to what the reviewer describes. When we think of the issues with scale, though, even if the control issues scaled at the same ratio as the physical design, needing a quarter mile in which to stop translates to a very long distance on a model railroad. ;p

Given that the boiler energy was being sent through the rails and had to be cut off to allow control pulses, additional issues of time and responsiveness were created. A radio link to handle cab control would have made more sense in my opinion, and should be designed to convey the same feedback that a real engineer at the real throttle has, including gauge readouts and position indicators. I've never flown radio controlled aircraft, but I suspect that similar difficulties appear with those due to not having the visual feedback that a person in the cockpit receives.

[hrrunka]

Yeah, model steam engines work quite well at those sorts of scales, but OO is clearly pushing the limits. I once considered the task of building a model traction engine. The favoured scales for those were, I think, 1:8 and 1:12 for some reason or other, though I've seen models up to 1:3 scale. The thought of spending several years' spare-time on the task dissuaded me...

We had a talk at the radio club last year about radio-controlled model aircraft. Apparently the rule is "Never fly a model you're not prepared to see 're-kitted'." They showed us video of some spectacular "re-kittings"...