Anyone had any experiece with one of these engines? I think they came out in the last 18 months but I haven’t kept up with MRR enough to see a review of one.
I’ve seen a review in “Railway Modeller” - they liked it. General feeling seemed to be that it was well made, but needed a bit of practice to get the best from it. Certainly they found that as their skills increased they could get longer running times from a fill of water than they could when they first ran it. It was also felt that it would improve further with careful running in, in much the same way as a conventional loco. It has been seen running outside and seems to have no problems with a prototypical length train (around 10 coaches), haulage doesn’t appear to be lacking. The only snag is that it needs its own power supply and control system which is incompatible with anything else - you can’t run it under DCC or in a conventional DC system. There are ways around this though - keeping a dedicated track for this loco, or wiring the layout so you can switch to either the regular control system or the Hornby live steam control unit. I think they would sell a lot more of them if it were DCC compatible (or if a conversion were available) and didn’t need the special controls as the locos on their own are pretty reasonably priced - not much more than a BLI steamer and with the bonus of using real steam to provide the sounds!
It is a nice product, I’ve had a chance to see it in operation a few times.
I believe we (CTT) have had some coverage of it, not sure if MR has ever carried anything about it other than the ads run by Hornby. A very interesting concept that I’d love to see applied to O gauge.
BTW I have a OO layout in the basement, but I’d have to wait till Hornby did an LMS engine - don’t want to mess up the uniformity of the fleet …
Hornby are releasing the A4 with several new names.
Just to warn: the power packs are area specific. Those sold in the U.K. are not compatible with U.S. power supply (50 hz, 240V vs 60 hz, 120V) and even a step down transformer won’t fix that. Canada put some extra requirements on, and our supply was delayed an extra half year.
I saw one at the NMRA show in Cincinnati Saturday. It operated flawlessly. Plus it some nice steam locomotive sounds and smells. I didn’t get the oppotunity to hear its whistle though. The operator told me each loco had it own unique whistle sound. Unfortunatly the one running was a bit of a dud. They’re going to be introducing a live steam LNER Scotsman soon. I liked what I saw and would love to see it operate on a cold winter day out of doors. It produced a good amount of steam.
Can a OO engine run on H.O. track?
Boyd:
Yes!
I use the Atlas HO track with the gray plastic roadbed. Once in a while I have a steamer pilot wheel, or the wheel of a lighter wagon derail as it runs (straight) through switches, but it is generally trouble free. I recently got the new Bachmann Branch-Line Class 66 and was a bit worried about it being able to do the curves, but I didn’t have any trouble at all.
British OO is 4 millimeters per foot, or 1/76, running on 16.5-millimeter HO track, which is scaled at 3.5 millimeters per foot, or 1/87. I believe that American OO, such as Lionel, is 1/76 scale running on 3/4-inch track, which is also 1/76 scale. So the Hornby locomotive won’t run on Lionel OO track.
Is there still a company in England that makes “O scale” live steam engines? I remember seeing ads I think in MR. I might have even called them once. I think they were made in 1:48 but I could be wrong. I think british “O scale” is 1:45. If they are still made how hard would it be to have different wheels installed with deeper flanges, whether they were from another engine or custom machined. Or if a person was desperate and/or cheap how about modifying one of those Mamod or other stationary steam engines onto an O gauge hi-rail chassy.
I’ve a feeling that Corgi have offered some O live steamers in recent years under the Basset Lowke name (one with a long history in O scale models). Alternatively, depending on how much space you have Mamod offer 16mm scale narrow gauge live steamers - these will run on Hornby O track (thet’s how we tested the one we have) which are probably the cheapest live steamers out there. The snag is that they have single-tube “pot” boilers and use solid fuel tablets to fire them, so they’re not good outside - the fire blows out, or they just can’t get enough steam up to haul a decent train. You can run them outside but it needs to be in a sheltered area - you can’t send them out into the garden as you can with more expensive locos. Hope this helps!