When ever there is extra preasure in the boiler of a steam engine a safety valve opens to let off some steam. My Idea is to put some sort of compressed liquid or someting else in the tender and put a small hose to go by the coupler and into the steam engine were it can be controled remotly by a valve and then go to a nozle on the top of the loco. Has this been done before?
Yea, but on like 7.5" live steam scale. Not on a model as far as I know.
Would be cool, Co2 would be the safest I reckon.
Ken.
Would be cheepest too,
Not something I would attempt in N or even HO
Could be dangerous. Besides, the tender is for speakers!! LOL
BB
I saw in an old, old Model railroader in a used bookstore once, about a model steam locomotive powered by dry ice. The ice would sublimate, turn in to Co2 and expand. This was controlled by controls on the bottom of the loco. Of course now with remote control technology an updated version might be in order.
James[C):-)]
A most intriguing idea! Possibly a CO2 catridge rigged up somehow.
Just now a thought crossed my mind - anyone ever see the Thomas the Tank Engine series? They already do something like that. When, for instance, one of the models stops at a station, a puff of some kind of vapor appears from underneath the locomotive. A possibility is some kind of mechanism under the tracks that makes it look like the vapor comes from the loco, but I don’t really know. Does anyone know how this effect is done?
There should be enough room for a small Co2 canister.
Ah-h-h-h…another great idea!! I had mentioned in an earlier thread that I would like to see steam or smoke in more locomotives, possibly controlled by a decdoer…and here comes a possibly workable solution!! Cool thinking! Who says all the thinking men in modeling are gone…
thank’s
I have often thought about effects like this myself, but I did not limit my thoughts to the safety valve. I usually think about the whistle, and the cylinders. I just think it would be awesome to be able to do all that.
Picture this. You are at the controls of your favorite model steamer, and you are pulling into the station, whistle screaming, the steam blasting high into the air. You slowly come to a stop, and as you sit there waiting for the green, you open the cylinder valves, and the steam shoots from the sides of your loco, hitting the side of the station building, then slowly floats into the air, and fades away. You then pull ahead, draining the condensation from the cylinders by shortly opening the valves again, blow the whistle, and head off into the distance.
It is a possibility that shouldn’t be too hard. The only problem I would see is the size of the components, and the space within the locomotive.
Hmm, it would make it easier if the locomotive had an axillary water tender.[:D]
Now I cannot recall if my BLI QSI sound 4-8-2 blowing after a hard pull. I wonder if this sound is forgotten.
A actual working safety valve would be pretty good. But I suspect that is confined to live steam. Now when the spouse lifts her saftey after seeing that nice new widget on the workbench… I use the response “That old thing?” that usually releases the pressure.
=)
Redneck,
I just don’t think you are going to be able to fit all the stuff you need to control the CO2, or whatever compressed gas or sublimating solid/liquid you use, into an HO-scale anything. Maybe in G scale, but not in HO. The smallest valves I know of that would work (handle the pressure, on and off, control the flow, etc.) are a little large to fit in a tender, but then you have the tubing and fittings, control electronics, wire, etc. Look at the “ghost” view of Hornby’s Mallard. Do you think you can cram that much stuff in a tender to get the steam effect? Save yourself the effort and buy the Mallard, or their newer engine coming out.
Neat idea, wrong scale.
Mark C.
What makes you think that after all that piping the CO2 will be cold enough to generate a “cloud”? After all CO2 is a colorless gas. If its not cold enough to condense the water in the air, you’ll never see anything.
Dave H.
Hornby makes live steam HO.
I never thaught of that.[B)]
This is true, but back to my question that I posted earlier. On the “Thomas the Tank Engine” series, they have a steam effect. While not exactly what Redneck05 had in mind, it is very close. Perhaps this could be adopted to do what Redneck05 wants, but I don’t know how they do this effect. Does anybody know?