Is anyone else into "live steam"? (Stationary Engines, Traction Engines, Trains)
I feel like I'm the only one under 40 who's into it

>>11485780 (OP)
I dig it, but don't know where to buy, aliexpress I guess. I'd like to have a stationary steam engine, better yet, with generator and I dunno, some old school style lightbulb.

You must be a reincarnated hobby trains man. Old people were always into that stuff, like building in their attics and stuff.

>>11485780 (OP)
I don't think live steam actually count as toys. They're literally just small locomotives.

>>11485780 (OP)
I love this stuff, but have no clue where to start? Is Jensen any good?

>>11487888
>>11488623

If you want stationary steam engine, I’d recommend wilesco, you can find some of them on Amazon or eBay
For trains, there is livesteamstation and thetraindepartment. Preowned can be found on eBay
They are more popular in UK than US so options may be limited. I bought my locomotives from roundhouse engineering

>>11487888
You don't typically buy a ready to run model. The vast majority of live steam models are scratch built. You'd need to know how to use a lathe and mill to build one. Knowing how to fabricate metal would be a necessity as well. It's super expensive.

As I understand it, the absolute smallest live steam locomotives were the Hornby OO gauge live steam locos. They still need track power to run the heating element in the boiler, but they are honest to God live steam locomotives.

>>11487926
There's a kind of fuzzy point when it stops being a "model" and starts being "light rail." Pic is 7.5" gauge, 1.5" to the foot scale.

>>11485780 (OP)
All roundhouse engines in that picture.

i got an older lady anne chassis that somebody built over 2 decades ago and never got the extra parts, but it's got differant bits to the modern chassis and im not sure a current boiler would fit it.

>>11488623
Roundhouse basic series for garden railways, very easy engines and decent runners when they're run in.

you might be tempted by mss engines cuz they're stupidly cheap but they're an absolute pain to get running right and the current production ones have a design flaw with the wheel flange that causes them to derail easyily on any track other then mss track.

>>11489780
>>11490867
Thank you both. I will try stationary engines first, as I lack the space for a garden railway (though my old neighbor would have loved it, at least I saw him wearing hats with stuff like A4s and UP 4-8-8-4 (well, UP 4014, specifically).

>>11487888
>aliexpress I guess
absolutely not! normally you buy this sort of thing from the manufacturer’s website or a specialist retailer, or second hand
>>11490224
nah there’s a fair amount of ready to run live steam out there, the number of manufacturers must be in the double digits
>>11490803
my definition has always been that it stops being a model train and starts being a miniature train when it can haul people in a practical manner

>>11485780 (OP)
Kids these days are very into "Livesteaming" from what I understand.

I have a small G gauge garden railway and keep thinking about getting into live steam but it seems like $500 is the lower end for a used 0-4-0.