is live steam dead?

[Go_West]

[reply]Bexhill Donkey said:

Very good 4 out of 10 for effort but you have missed the point and made a few miss statements ….

Yes they get very hot when Mr Watt was build steam engines he got the idea from watching a pot boil on a fire so

yes very hot. dangerous for children yes like any form of play if not treated right like climbing trees Hornby state for persons of 14 years and over I have let children run my engines and got them to draw up in a station and they have operated them better

than older people.

you need not worry about dirty track! Yes you do as I spent 30 years at Marconi building defence RADAR all electrical connection need to be clean a poor connection will affect anything even a light bulb.
electricity is used as

a power source! Yes a good idea it is clean and less of a problem the other fuels.

Electric motor in it to open the regulator, there are many models today that use this system cars, boats, helicopters, planes to transmit a signal to the model and control

speed or make a turn will all be done by an electric motor models now are being fitted with brush less motors which give more power and turn faster than bush type motors.
There is no brake. Yes your right no brakes some of the early engines never had brakes

the speed was controlled by shutting the regulator and the pistons would act as a compressor this compressed air and vacuum would slow an
Engine, engines like Mallard were fitted with a snifter valve so that when the regulator was shut air could enter

the cylinders and the engine would roll on.
You can only stop by putting the engine into reverse. What you need to achieve is to just shut the regulator slowly till the engine is in a crawl and at the desired point just one click on the lever should bring

the engine to a stop or understand the time and distace travel and hold the regulator shut to stop but like the real thing all engines are different. You can watch a video of me stopping my engine right by my hands here at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kMl9QGa07C8



I think it would be better if you filled the boiler with water, first we must look at cost to build a model steam engine with a boiler and heater and safety valve then to use this via the engines cylinders to be pushed up the chimney would be too costly

and a waste of time, you can buy engines that have electric motors make sounds and emit smoke and control them with computer or phone.

Real power to move the train was coming from an electric motor! Many here would cross swords with you on that one

people operate live steam because it is that live steam they may like me have a few electric motor driven engines in 00 but the live steam is for us the fact that every time you start up your never sure what will happen just like the real thing. One thing

is certain there will always be great interest in live steam both small and full size what would the National Railway Museum be like if they ripped out the steam parts of Mallard and fitted Transformers and Motors and put a pantograph on the roof. People visit

places like Didcot to see a steam engine.

One thing you must not loose sight of is that my computer and all things electrical are power by steam some one is boiling watere to generate steam to make electricity apart from wind or solar which would not

be good at night of if the wind stops blowing our train would not run.

I finish by saying at the start I mentioned Mr Watt the man that helped build a steam engine and put his name into the history book next time you look at a light bulb and printed

there you see 60 watt that is all because of him.
Happy modelling what ever you drive.

[ResearchEngineer]

Very interesting points raised here. I believe that the technology behind the live-steam product was presented in some model railway magazine articles prior to Hornby's product being launched. Could anyone give me the references for these articles? I would

like to research the technology with a view to further publication. Any help gratefully received.

[Go_West]

[reply]2e0dtoeric said:

The header is - is live steam dead?

When the Lynton and Barnstaple Railway closed in September 29th 1935 the next day a wreath was layed at Barnstaple town station on it was a black edged card written on it were these

words....

"To Barnstaple & Lynton Railway, with regret and sorrow from a constant user and admirer. Perchance it is not dead but sleepeth"

Since that day to this day people have opened up parts of the old line and steam engines run once more

so nothing is ever dead and one day Hornby might just run out a new engine?

[Brightstar]

ResearchEngineer said:

Very interesting points raised here. I believe that the technology behind the live-steam product was presented in some model railway magazine articles prior to Hornby's product being launched. Could anyone give me the

references for these articles? I would like to research the technology with a view to further publication. Any help gratefully received.

Hi ReasearchEngineer,

The Live Steam Club, has been republishing the article in their Newsletter.

You need to join the club and you can read the serialised version. http://oolivesteam.com

[The son of Triangman]

I agree about Hornby live steam for now it is dead or rather sleeping. Most companies would categorise it as an obsolete product as it is out of production. Hornby may one day revisit it, but the economy will have to be much improved for that to happen

me thinks. The recession is far from over if you travel north of London and the posh home counties people are still loosing their jobs and most companies north of London are just bumping along the bottom. There are green shoots of recovery but it's patchy,

you will always get exceptions to the rule of course but generally north of the posh areas things aren't that good at present. Give it time and wait for things to improve and maybe Hornby will revisit live steam.

[LCDR]

I was fascinated to see a 'Live Steam' layout at the York Model Railway show at Easter. As well as the Hornby models in original condition there were some hand built locomotives including a 'LMS 5MT' running round with a good load behind them.

Because

it has to be operated separately from normal trains, and it is expensive when compared with them too, it was always going to be a specialist niche product.