Welcome

Live steam model on 7¼" gauge of the Württembergische T3 no 924

Welcome to this blog. It will inform you about the progress of designing and building live steam model locomotives. The blog contains the description of a model Würrtembergische T3 on 7¼" gauge (built between 2006 and 2017), the wagons for this loco (built between 2018 and 2022)  and a 5" gauge model of a Great Eastern Railway Y14 class loco (started in 2020)

On the left you'll find the index where you can browse through the different articles and on the right you'll find all the extra's. On the top tabs you'll find a brief description of my other locos.

 

 

Click for the direct link to start of construction series below 
T3 7¼" steam locomotive 
 
Enjoy this site. Erik-Jan Stroetinga. The Netherlands. Europe.

 

 

 

Monday 5 June 2023

Driving at Modelbouw Vereniging Twente (Enschede)

Saturday 4th of  June 2023, we went to Modelbouw Vereniging Twente. They have a nice track in Enschede, through woodlands. Very nice and easy-going club atmosphere. 

I also had the opportunity to take some photos of the complete Märklin start set and we did some double heading with another 0-6-0 tank loco. Yzoo brought his recently finished Swiss SBB Tigerli E 3/3 Nr. 8527.  This loco is almost the same size as the Württembergische T3, and both full-size locos were contemporaries, from around 1900. We had the pleasure to drive the Tigerli, which gives a splendid view of the valve gear and connecting rods. Great to see it in action and it is a very nice loco to drive.

John brought his also recently completed Baureihe 95 along and with the Baureihe 64 from Wybren and the Baureihe 50 from Bart, it did look a lot like an H0 model railway 😃

We had a lovely time there and a nice BBQ to end the day with. 













The replaced water gauge glass was working fine (no leakage anymore)






Yzoo's wonderful SBB Tigerli E 3/3 Nr. 8527













In front of the clubhouse, there was a nice model engineering exhibition.





Thursday 1 June 2023

Driving the "T3 Märklin start set"

Lately, a lot of time has been invested in making a final design for the boiler of the Y14 loco project on 5".  Finding a copper pipe in the correct dimensions for the boiler shell was difficult. Due to Brexit, importing this from the UK is a big problem. In the end I've got a piece of 4½" pipe (114mm). This is a perfect fit for the loco.  



Also some more detailing and boiler parts were designed and drawn. A FEM simulation was done with the boiler parts, to calculate the strength of it. 




Also last weekend we went to the track in Turnhout (Belgium) to drive with the now almost completed  T3 loco and the set of wagons.
This was the first outing with my complete 'Märklin Start set' on 7¼ gauge' 😁.   Also a nice test of my new Lumix 8 mm fisheye lens. 































With my new 8 mm fisheye lens I also made a small video clip, so you can get an impression of the beautiful track of Stoomgroep Turnhout  




Or to see it on YouTube go to  https://youtu.be/Y5VOmIYX1WM


Some fitting work

As you may have noted in the video; the right-hand water gauge is leaking a bit. Not much, just a few drops, but enough to leave some chalk marks on the glass and this makes the water level hard to see,
so I've now replaced the glass and the sealings (silicone rings). Due to the leaking, the glass was worn on the outside (with your fingernails you could feel a rough surface of the glass, even after it was cleaned in citric acid.)
This coming weekend we are going to Enschede (Modelbouw Vereniging Twente), so hopefully the new glass will be ok and tight. 




The old water gauge glass. As if the outside is etched away by the water that leaked.