Steam U Class

KeithT

KeithT

Hillwalking, chickens and - err - garden railways.
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OOO I want one of these I have a Anna which is from the same stable Trouble is I'm a bit far away to grab this one..........
 
i'm sure someone here would sort the shipping out for you if u bought it
 
Ooooh These don't come along very often. they were nowhere near as popular as the Beck Anna - I think they called this one Helene. The top of the dome looks a bit odd and I'm pretty sure that the steam feed wasn't bare copper. This could be one built by Tom Cooper from the parts he bought from Beck when they closed. Its no less an engine for that, as the mechanical components were superb.
 
I always fancied one of these too as the U class are one of my favourite engines , but the very basic appearence of the model has moved it to the bottom of the wanted list. YUK!!! :thumbdown:
 
Mmm, early 80's at that, Alyn. Don't expect this to have performance like an Accucraft or Roundhouse loco, they are, er, crepe. I have an Anna, and have repaired a Helene, not worth much IMHO. Paul's Anna is a super deluxe version that has Roundhouse cylinders, they bought up the remaning Beck parts after Merlin went out of business, he's lucky to have found one of those, it will be a much better performer. Also the boilers are brass, but that's a whole sensitive area I'm not going to get into here!
 
Brass boilers are of 'concern' to some of the model engineering folk, Paul. Old Mamods are often found to have rotted right through....

I have a Regner 'Betty' myself, it's not bad at all, and is very heavily made to say the least, and it is a model of...nothing at all! It's not as powerful as my other locos though. when I'm back on my feet I intend to examine it more closely to see if I can improve it at all.
 
New Haven Neil 2 said:
Old Mamods are often found to have rotted right through....
Click to expand...

I got an SLK1 I bought from the UK that is doing this, probably not run on distilled water.
 
I have seen a few on the Unofficial Mamod Forum Garrett, it's quite worrying! I have seen several explanations, and also seen them equally debunked by alleged industrial chemists, but nevertheless it happens, as you say. I'm not going to re-open the feedwater debate, but the only thing that goes into boilers is..... ;)

The Regner is of course built to a much higher spec, and I would like to think the materials grades are better too. The chassis components of it are in fact far more substantial than the other popular makes, it's built like a brick outhouse. It's just I have the niggle at the back of my mind about the boiler being brass!:@

Back almost OT, early Rubies I think had the valves arranged so that the steam pathway was more torturous in forward gear (this design has steam or exhaust passing up through the centre of the valve) this can be reversed by resetting the eccentrics and valve setting so giving better forward running than reverse. Not sure if the new 'big cylinder' ones are the same? Probably not.

I'm with Tag though, this really should not all happen, there must be a fundamental cause.
 
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