It's Steamy Sunday here on the Blog! Today's photo is from my trip last week in Minnesota to work the Western Minnesota Steam Thresher's Reunion. I work a 3 hour shift in the afternoon with this locomotive, a 14 inch scale Wagner. It's a fun locomotive to operate. I took this photo in the morning on a cloudy day of it in front of the newly completed, expanded roundhouse.
It's Steamy Sunday here on the Blog! Today's image goes back to Minnesota in June. This was taken while I was getting it ready to head out onto the track for the day. Behind it is the scratch built caboose. The kids really love riding in it. The extended Roundhouse is very nice as well.
It's Steamy Sunday here on the Blog! As I mentioned yesterday, I was in Minnesota last week. I was able to be "playing" with this locomotive, the Ortner Railroad Wagner 14 inch scale. I took a photo of it here, stopped by our station and loading area.
Happy first day of February, the year is moving along and winter too, looking forward to being done with that. It's Steamy Sunday here on the Blog! Today's image is a steamy shot of the Wagner locomotive that I get to operate up in Rollag Minnesota at the Western Minnesota Steam Thresher's school and/or Reunion. We were operating the locomotive on this day in September during the Labor Day weekend show. The steam is produced from the injector as it was being ether turned on or shut off. "Train Poop" refers to the ash and coal remnants that come out of the ash pan when we clean it. 😂
It's Steamy Sunday here on the Blog. Today's image goes back to this past year's Steam Thresher's Reunion in Rollag MN. The Roundhouse for the 14 inch scale Wagner had just been completed for the most part and I took this image of it sitting inside early one evening. The Roundhouse is now double in size and is most likely the largest Grand Scale Roundhouse in the country.
It's Steamy Sunday here on the Blog! The roundhouse addition at the Western Minnesota Steam Thresher's is basically complete and we were using it during the show. It looks really great and I think it's the largest non-full size roundhouse. There eventually will be a smokestack above the engine stall so it can be fired up inside the building.
It's Steamy Sunday here on the Blog! Today's image once again is from my recent week in Minnesota. They hold a Kid's Day every year during the Steam School weekend and it was as popular as ever. We had lots of riders who enjoyed being behind a steam engine. I took this image during a test run I was doing the day before in front of the cool coaling tower that was donated to the railroad along with the buildings seen in other pictures and videos.
I have a short video of the train traveling past this Coaling Tower HERE:
It's Steamy Sunday here on the Blog! As I mentioned yesterday, I was in Minnesota this last weekend to run for Kids Day and Steam School. The area is called The Ortner Railroad named for one of the original donors/operators. The locomotive is a 14 inch Wagner and is a fun locomotive to operate. I have a short video HERE of it as it starts off with it's train. I love to listen to the chug as it works up the grade as it starts out.
It's Steamy Sunday here on the Blog! Today's image is another of the 14 inch scale Wagner locomotive while it was being blown down. It was sitting on the turntable at the time to not spray water all over the gravel area and make it muddy. Blowing it down can cool off an engine very rapidly and is not generally good practice if it still has a lot of pressure as it can cause metal stress. It is best to have it cool down slowly to basically no pressure to avoid causing rapid temperature changes to the metal.
It's Steamy Sunday here on the blog! It's also a double digit day! 😀 Today's image is a perfect one for today as it is very steamy. This is the Wagner locomotive being "blown down" to have some work performed on it. To "blow down" a locomotive means to let the pressure off fairly quickly, usually by opening a special valve on larger locomotives or boiler plugs on smaller ones. Under normal circumstances, you don't want temperatures to change quickly on a locomotive as it stresses the metal. However, blowing it down a bit at times can help clear and sediment or gunk that couple be in the boiler. Generally you want the pressure on the boiler to drop to 0 before you drain it. On this day we were wanting to do a quick repair so we could resume running for the visitors to the show.
It's Steamy Sunday here on the Blog! Today's image is from this past show in August at the Western Minnesota Steam Thresher's Reunion. This is the 14 inch Wagner locomotive blowing down so some work could be done to it on one of the steam lines.
It's Steamy Sunday here on the Blog! Today's image is another from the night run that was done on the Ortner Railroad this past Labor Day weekend. I did not work it, I just attended and enjoyed it. It made for great atmosphere and fun to go for a ride at night with the decorating lights.
It's Steamy Sunday here on the Blog! I had been sharing cab photos and I have one more to share of the ones that I operate. This is the inside of the 14 inch scale Wagner locomotive at the Western Minnesota Steam Thresher's Reunion. This was on Thursday before the show as we were steaming up to test and it started to rain so it is partially inside the roundhouse. The steam pressure gauge is showing close to 125 lbs of steam pressure. The red handle under that to the left is for steam to the oil pump. Just above that in a darker red is the left side water injector steam. The chain is for the whistle. The black handle to the right of the chain is the "blower" to get airflow through the firebox when you have steam pressure up to help the fire burn better. The red handle is for the right side injector to bring water into the boiler. The 3 handles at an angle are the Try Cocks. They help you determine where the water level is in the boiler in case something is wrong with the sight glass (the angled tube on the left of them, or just as a double check. The handle in the middle is the throttle. The black lever to the lower right is the Reverser which also makes it go forward. The little knob down at the right is for the cylinder cocks, to open and close them. The lever on the left is a brake which kind of works. 😂 The blue valves on the lower right and left are for the water from the tender for the injectors.
It's Steamy Sunday here on the Blog! Today's image is of the 14 inch scale Wagner locomotive at the Western Minnesota Steam Thresher's Reunion. I took an image of it in front of the fancy coaling tower that the Ortner Railroad received last year. The detail that was put into this building was quite extensive and realistic.
I have a new short video of this locomotive doing a test run with the passenger cars during the show this year. The video is located HERE.
It's Steamy Sunday here on the Blog! The Ortner Railroad which is the official name of the 14 inch scale train area that I help operate at the Western Minnesota Steam Thresher's reunion had a night run. There were various areas on the grounds that ran at night to give people that are working at other areas a chance to see and do things. It was very well received and they had around 300 riders. They operated until around 11pm. I took a ride but did not work it. The ambiance was really nice with hanging kerosene lanterns around the loop, we used an LED flashlight as a headlight, that was my idea. 😊
There is a very short video located HERE if you would like to see a bit of how it went.
It's Steamy Sunday here on the Blog! It's also Labor Day Weekend and time for the Western Minnesota Steam Thresher's Reunion where I will, hopefully, getting to operate this locomotive. This is the 14 inch Wagner large scale locomotive that I took a photo of when I was there in June. It's sitting at our new loading area.
It's Steamy Sunday here on the Blog! We are halfway through the year already! Wow, time flies. Here is another posed image of the 14 inch Wagner on the Ortner Railroad. I took this image near the amazingly detailed miniature station that was donated to the railroad last year.
If you would like to view a video of the locomotive operating where this and other neat buildings can be seen, I have a YouTube video here that I shared a while back.
It's Steamy Sunday here on the Blog! Today I am sharing an image of the Wagner locomotive that I get to help run in Minnesota. It's a 14 inch scale and was sitting at the Roundhouse before we steamed it up. The Roundhouse is in the process of being expanded to accommodate some new rolling stock that was acquired last year.
It's Steamy Sunday here on the Blog! I was in Minnesota at the Western Minnesota Steam Thresher's Reunion which is held every year over Labor Day Weekend. The coal we were using for the locomotive at the Ortner Railroad, a 14 inch gauge, was very dusty so would create a lot of smoke when you were feeding your fire. I liked how the sunlight highlighted it in this image.
I created a video of the ride around it's area and it can be seen HERE.
