by W. Ross Crawford First, measure the distance between the front and the rear wheels to see if the axles are parallel. Then, check to see if the wheels are the same size. Any differences will cause flange wear on one wheel. If there are no centers in the axles, install them now insuring they [...]
A historic milestone was reached on Wednesday 25th June 2014, when Puffing Billy Railway celebrated its youngest NA locomotive’s 100th birthday. Narrow Gauge locomotive 14A was built in the Victorian Railways Newport Workshop and was commissioned on 25 June 1914 for operation on the Colac-Beech Forest-Crowes line. 14A also saw service between Wangaratta and Whitfield [...]
Bidders fell under the spell of the machine in Heritage Auctions’ $1.2+ million presentation of the Glenn Reid Museum Collection of Mechanical Models May 28 at Heritage Auctions in Dallas. The collection offered nearly 500 scale models from the Detroit-area museum with top lot honors taken by a fully-equipped, 24-foot Ahrens-Fox N-S-4 fire truck, which [...]
A&K now offer a full line of Gas Burners as well as the custom-made Box Burners. Oil Burners and custom made Grates for solid fuel can be provided from tabletop to full size in any scale. Hobby Boilers…If your Old Steamer needs a new hobby boiler, or if a hobby boiler is needed for a [...]
American Precision Museum will be presenting their 15th annual model engineering show at their facility in Windsor, Vermont on Saturday, October 25, 2014. Running from 9 AM to 4PM, the museum will be offering exhibits, demonstrations and activities for the whole family. The American Precision Museum is located at 196 Main Street and the Windsor Recreation [...]
We’ve just released The Steam Engines of Ray HasBrouck for your latest steaming endeavor! Spiral bound and containing 112 pages of details, Ray’s book will provide you with all the information you’ll need to build any or all of the following steam engines. One-cylinder Double-acting Open column 2-1/4" x 3" stroke One-Flea-Power "Little Boy" 1/8" [...]
There are a few shop-type jobs for which I have little patience; topping the list are chain-drilling and hacksawing. Drilling a 3/16" hole in a 1/2" piece of steel is not a big deal. It might take you up to a minute – no sweat. Needing to do it forty or fifty more times to [...]
by Denis Larrick At a track meet last month, I had an opportunity to chat with one of our authors about many subjects connected with our hobby of live steaming. During the conversations, one item in particular came up that struck me as being very handy, almost one of those “Why didn’t I think of [...]
A good part of the maturing population remembers a time when nearly every town had its own depot. Train time was almost a community affair; families would greet the travelers or send them off with hugs and waves, kids would ride their bikes for blocks to see the train, old-timers would watch through faded eyes [...]
by Neil Knopf, Editor "When talking about narrow-gauge steam locomotives, almost everyone refers to the engines of the Denver & Rio Grande Western as an example of the most popular ones." Kozo Hiraoka explains as he begins the introduction of his next locomotive series starting in the July/August issue of Live Steam & Outdoor Railroading. [...]