Which coal fired loco?

Moonraker

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25 Oct 2009
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After twenty years of gas fired locos on my garden railway, I would like to give coal a try and am seeking a recommendation for a loco to purchase.

My situation is that my railway has five foot radius curves and a couple of 1 in 50 inclines. My existing locos are all Roundhouse, or scratch built using Roundhouse components, and are radio controlled. I enjoy running it as a railway with a little shunting, etc. and also run the locos on a large club layout now and again.

I am located near Adelaide, South Australia and I don't know of anyone else using coal within 1000Km of me so I will be on my own.

At least once a year, I will be taking the loco interstate to garden railway events and will need to pack it into a suitcase to take on the plane. Hence my preference would be for a small tank loco with no tender. I will need radio control on the regulator and preferably also on the reverser. My grandchildren would also appreciate a radio controlled whistle.

Budget is not a big factor. Does anyone have any recommendations?

Regards
Peter Lucas
MyLocoSound
 

haleycuk

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18 Dec 2009
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An ELR Horatio.

http://www.elr-engineering.co.uk/horatio.html

Based on familiar Roundhouse mechanicals. Compact and robust. Available with RC and resonator whistle.

Best of all very easy to steam. In fact too easy and the challenge is not to over steam her! I've been very happy with mine.

All the best.
Chris Haley
 

John Morgan

Steam Traction
23 Jun 2011
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Gday mate,
If you are into scratch building etc have you considered a DJB project?
Use an Accucraft chassis or a Roundhouse chassis if you are more adventurous.

Regards, John.
 

Chris Bird

Steam,gardening, photography
14 Dec 2009
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Dorset
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Hi Peter
Simon Whenmouth (who regularly ships overseas) has a secondhand coal fired Edrig at the moment - you can see the listing here, at the bottom of the page:

http://www.summerlands-chuffer.co.uk/#/anything-narrow-gauge/4577586312

There are a couple of videos of this type of loco in action here:

http://www.summerlands-chuffer.co.uk/#/coal-firing/4577411811

I hope this helps
Cheers
Chris
 

400Parker

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18 Nov 2013
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I'd certainly endorse the choice of a DJB loco. I'm the very happy owner of two and the Edrig featured in Chris's video is mine. I thought it would be useful to have radio control on a coal fired loco but none of my coal fired locos have r/c. I have a 3% gradient on my railway and I don't need to open the regulator for the loco (and train) to get up it. The beauty of coal firing (compared with gas) is the harder the loco works the more it draws the fire and the more steam it produces.
Running a coal fired loco is much more 'hands on' than gas firing and you tend to drive it rather than control it (using r/c). The only thing that would be nice to have is a radio controlled whistle.
The other thing I'd recommend is starting off with an Edrig or Ragleth, either second hand or convert your own, and get some experience and understanding of coal firing. ELR locos are very nice (I have a Russell converted by them) but I'm glad I started with something simple and straightforward.
Steve
 

Llongfordrailway

Edrig, Little John, Ruby, Ffion and Coal Fowler
17 Nov 2013
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There is now a wide variety of choice of suppliers. Djb engineering, Elr engineering, river dale locomotives and John shawe (there will probably be more but they are the one I am aware of). Depends what you want to do but you can build your own using roundhouse parts and building your own boiler. I already owned and ran a 5" coal fired engine so I knew about running the engine but waned to dip my toe into some building. I decided to build coal fired engine in for 45mm track due to the equipment I had, anything bigger was out of my reach. I learnt a tremendous amount along the way in regards to building. It started off as a lady Anne but I struggled to correctly fit inner side tanks to my satisfaction so opted for a tender engine instead. In hindsight, there are other ways I could have fitted the side tanks but I'll know for ext time (there will be a next time!!!). this is my engine: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XyyXIzz3H28&feature=youtube_gdata_player

Let us know how you get on and what you decide.

Regards

Dan
 

opabert

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7 Dec 2012
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If you are familiar with Roundhouse locomotives, Riverdale is a good choice, as the Riverdale locomotives are Roundhouse locomotives with a Riverdale boiler.
URL: http://riverdale-loco.s-nl.net/
 

Moonraker

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Many thanks to all who responded. I didn't realise that there were so many options and will now take some time comparing them before making a choice.

Regards
Peter
 

green park

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25 Sep 2013
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very happy with my sabre steam annette now i have got it right peter. apparently the earlier ones were set up better, but if you get a later one they can be sorted. helps if you can see it working before purchase i guess. ...martin
 

stevem

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16 Aug 2011
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Hi from Queensland, Australia


We have been building several coal fired locos on Roundhouse,Accurcraft and Brian Wilson chassis since 2000 in our Group.


By far the simplest and trouble free coal fired locos are that of the Riverdale design, without an axle pump or crosshead pump the loco runs like a gas fired loco, these pumps chew up half the locos energy it seems. Plus all it takes is an air bubble and the pump stops working.


The Riverdale water gauge glass and RC operated firebox door/damper is also a great feature. You may have seem these locos operating at the Great Southern Steam up recently.


Regards
Steve