Hey everybody, it's Norm from Tested and
if you caught this year's Maker
Faire I was so delighted by the miniature
train setups that are run by hobbyists
who work specifically with steam engines
at small scale. Now some of them clued me
into an annual meetup and that's where
we're at right now the national summer
meetup for steam train enthusiasts. Wanna
watch some trains run chat with some
engineers and learn how they exactly
work
Allen it's great to meet you nice to
meet you
you have your trace you have a bunch of
engines here mm-hmm tell me about this
engine this is a gas power yeah this is
this is a butane fired steam engine it's
a it's a small to 6o mogul that Southern
Pacific used for many many years they
used them in the San Joaquin Valley as
well as all over their system this
particular one has a lot of meaning for
me because number 17 27 was the actual
engine number of the engine that that
switched my dad's chemical plant he was
chief chemist and a chemical plant and I
can only remember as a little kid
watching this thing make runs for the
hill with a pushing some cars on so this
is a standard engine and as you can see
by taking a look in here it has all of
the actual controls that you have on the
steam engine
we call it the burn finger Society
because it has water still boys it boils
at 212 yeah yeah and I have big hands
and so you end up here but if you come
home from a weekend with a few burns but
no blisters it's a wonderful weekend
that's great yeah these are at what
scale compared to the full okay this is
eyes this is 1 1 2 32 which is 3/8 of an
inch to the floyd and so this would be
standard gauge a standard 4 foot 8 and a
half on 45 millimeter track no you can
you can change the physical scale of the
build of the train but the physics of
steam don't change no they don't change
okay I mean it's like so you it has all
the usual things when you you have to
have there's oil here so that you need
to have lubrication for the steam going
into the cylinders so the cylinders
don't lock up that's an important thing
so we have that and then we have here's
the fuel tank here that you can see and
we put water in it here and there are
two ways to get water into the boiler
you can either pump it like this or
there is an axle
on the locomotive and while it's running
will actually pump water into the boiler
to keep the boiler level up and having
water in the boiler is a good thing
right right yeah you want to keep that
running and cool right when this runs
when you're operating it how does that
compare to what are an engineer for a
full-size steam engine would do well you
have to do all the same things all the
same things okay because if you want to
reverse it you have to reach in here and
you have to adjust the Johnson bar to
adjust the reversing on it okay if you
want to have you open the throttle you
open it here and that the actual
throttle lots of people have things
where that are radio controlled on this
but I don't have radio control RC I have
our C team which is redeker chases
trains you're running along the track
because you are at full scale you're not
1/32 scale you can't pull those levers
on the engine itself okay so you have to
go like that and then get in there and
then this is a nice little brass car
that goes behind it that is correct for
scale and timing on this locomotive this
one is done this one is made by a key
craft
trained in of the Union City California
and this one is is imported from the
United Kingdom now these are examples of
off-the-shelf
ready-to-run parts that you operate but
over here you have some of your engines
that you tell me are a little more
modified right now this one is a pardon
me it was off the tracks here we can't
have an engine off the tracks in an
interview okay this one is a standard a
cue craft for eight 8/2 and this
locomotive number 42 94 is the one where
if you go down to Old Town to the
California State Railroad Museum that
exact engine number is down there and
you stand there and you look up at it
like this and then there it is I'm
getting a real sense that part of the
love for this hobby is having the
analogues for the real engines and I've
learnt a personal connection or
something you've seen it's you want to
find the ones that really ran right and
this one I only made a couple of
modifications to it I put a whistle on
it okay and here's the little thing that
operates the whistle and in addition I
put lights on it so if let's see if we
can find the right switch back here so
there we are with lights and we were
able to run at nighttime because you'll
notice that there is a light on the
pressure gauge so you can see what the
heck's going on yeah but this one is
pretty much standard this one is also
gas fired there also I also have alcohol
fired engine some people you may find
here actually have engines where they
shovel : yes and that's a little bit too
much work for me when I look at this
it's tough for me to discern what is an
aesthetic piping versus what its actual
operationally required operationally
required is pretty much hidden hidden
okay but and the rest of this is mostly
mostly detailed piping until you get
back here and there's where you have
have things going to and from the tender
this is the fuel line here and this is
pressurized
water going into the boiler and this is
the return for when it's not pumping now
if we come over and there you can take a
look in the back of the of the boiler
now on this engine here it also has
lights but though I did something
special with the with the lights on this
one and if I will eventually find a
switch here if you take a look up here
at the lights that's what the engine
would look like sitting on a siding but
not actually running a train and because
you don't want to have the headlight on
when there's an oncoming train gonna
scare people so when you go out on the
out on the Main Line the head light
comes on so that's what we do and again
this one is similar with all the piping
and everything on the inside of it you
made these modifications so that they
can look beautiful on display not
running order an event like this running
for four hours at a time right this one
I this one as you can see everything's
kind of dark and all the rest of that
because this one has run a lot I can
half-hour time segments over the past
class of course of the last eight years
this one has run a hundred and forty
hours well you tell you that up you keep
like I keep a log of that so so that one
that looks a little grungy in there
because this is a working locomotive and
this exact locomotive has pulled a train
with 87 refrigerator cars up a half a
percent grade
so that's like 200 that's gonna be
around 250 or 275 pounds upper grade and
needless to say we had to do a couple of
things to modify it to do that that one
will only pull about 60 that's so a lot
when I think about running on steam and
that amount of gas and I love how dirty
and weather looks many times when we
look at model makers it's fake grind
it's fake oil but this is something
actually what is right that's right this
one's wrong it's it started out it
didn't start out shiny it started out
with some painted on grime okay but then
when you run it okay it gets the real
thing yeah and if you take a look at it
here if that one's reasonably clean but
this one you can see the side rods are
oily and all the rest of that I mean you
have to oil it every time Allen oh how
may I help you on this thing this is I
just want to watch them run now okay
such a pleasure
Allen okay thank you so much it's so
clear that that you love your paw being
you love your passion and their there's
a deep personal connection between these
trains and you and it's a pleasure to
meet you very much Mike very nice to
meet you Norman
Rob what's going on here so the idea is
it if we really want to have fun with
these engines and really try to screw
ourselves up really well we put three of
them together and these guys are all
running cold at the same time so the
challenge here is to not have any run
one engine pushed too hard or pull too
hard because then the cars could
sometimes even split apart so the idea
is that we guys have three of all three
run together before so we understand how
it should work ideally and so we all
have to stop in coordination to add coal
to make sure the water's topped up and
that's the fun of it now you can see
back here Joel now has got low water and
his boiler sees having to use his hand
pump because we'll have to go at the
same time so that's the real challenge
behind are you ready to go all right
let's get going let's go what's wrong do
you ever get nervous always always do
you never quite sure how it's gonna work
here we go
so we don't want into any engine running
faster than any of the other engines
with this that's kind of the challenge
that's that's three whole trainings
connected with three experienced
engineers running around this this track
they're gonna do it for an hour and a
half
and it looks like we have them going
with so far if you want to check that
the couplers kind of stay together the
no engine is pulling too hard so and
you're spinning it or not and so far
we're doing a decent job but trying to
keep the train together what's the worst
thing that can happen well pull each
other apart hold the Train apart and
could explode onto the floor
so we have a good glow going inside my
firebox and I hope everybody else's is
the same that's gonna allow us to keep
together well yeah when you fire a
coalition you have to make sure that
there's no gaps in the coal so that the
air can go through just that hole which
causes the rest of the coal to go out
around it which causes the flier to go
out and then you have to pull off
because you're the doofus that can't run
his engine and that's all in the
placement of your call exactly in the
flesh Minh of the coal yeah do any of
the engines rely on the power of your
engine at all well we all three work
together it's just as a heavy load of
passenger cars here and Astrakhan
freight cars so we all work together to
get this done and we all give you said
thumbs up or thumbs down kind of thing
when we're ready to go and we have a new
bead in the second engine he's learning
how to run so we got to give him a
little more time
so the danger of sitting here and idling
is that you can see we didn't want to
get a picture of this sight glass yeah
yeah I see that the wonderful water
level inside the boiler if it gets get
down below the red mark yeah I'm gonna
panic because that means that sits below
what they call the crown chute and the
water then this allowed to touch the top
of the boiler and that's not a good
thing it could damage the zambezi boiler
so in this particular case simply top
down there I have to go to the tender
pump and pump water into the boiler
which will gradually raise that sight
glass level to something that's okay
okay
Oh
so I was pulling too hard so I pulled
the Train apart that's what's gonna
happen
who needs to be perfectly balanced it's
all things should be
