08/17/25

 It's Steamy Sunday here on the Blog!  I had a neat and unexpected experience in Colorado this summer.  I was out for a walk one evening in the town we were camping in and discovered that there is a manufacturer of railroad locomotive parts, Ulco, located in that town.  The owner had a wonderful grand scale locomotive that he and his father had built years ago.  He operates it every now and then and was going to operate on the day we were going to head home.  We ended up staying later and I ended up firing up the locomotive and getting to operate it for a short distance.  It's an amazingly well detailed and built locomotive based on the ones that the Cumbres & Toltec and Durango and Silverton's Railroads run.  It has many details that the full size ones have.

06/15/25

 It's Steamy Sunday here on the Blog!  I recently was running at the railroad I help out at outside Topeka.  This is an image of the Ottaway locomotive that I run there during it's blow down of the boiler after we were done.  I have a video of a lot of the process HERE on YouTube.  It actually takes a bit longer than I show but I cut it down some.  There is more information on the process in the description of the video as well if you are interested.  The process does make for a nice steamy image. 😄

12/15/24

 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.

12/08/24

 It's Steamy Sunday here on the Blog!  Today's image is another from when we had the Memorial Run out at the C&H railroad.  We had all 3 engines operating for the very first time so I had to capture some photos of them.  These are all 12 inch Ottaway locomotives that were originally built in Wichita Kansas.  The 1st one run on the C&H is on the right, the second on the left and the middle one was restored by the owners several years back now.

11/24/24

 It's a double digit day!  😀  It's also Steamy Sunday here on the Blog.  Today's image is a bit different as I am actually in it.  I had someone shooting some video with my phone and I pulled this off the video.  It was a 3 whistle salute to the owner of the railroad who has passed by the 3 operating locomotives he owned.  Ottaway 1011 is on the left, 1045 is in the middle and #5 which originated as 1031 is on the right.  Steam going up into the whistle and moving about the chamber and out creates the sound to extremely simplify how a whistle works.  It was the first time all 3 locomotives were operating together.

11/17/24

 It's Steamy Sunday here on the Blog!  This is an image from the Santa Run late in October at the C & H Railroad.  The semaphore works and is a neat fixture at the railroad.  There are a lot of actual pieces of railroad equipment or buildings in use there which makes for a more realistic experience.  You can see the semaphore operating in the video I had posted HERE.

11/10/24

 It's Steamy Sunday here on the Blog!  During the memorial run at the C & H Railroad one of the former engineers was out for the event and got locomotive Number 5 steamed up.  He and I were taking some artsy images of it and this is one of them.  Number 5 is a highly modified Ottaway locomotive and is the first locomotive that was run on the railroad.  It was nice to see it operating again.

11/03/24

 It's Steamy Sunday here on the Blog!  Today's image is from last Saturday at the railroad I help out at outside Topeka Kansas.  It was a lovely autumn day and the weather was pretty good and Santa came and visited with the kids which they enjoyed very much.  This is an image of one of the steam trains as it was crossing the bridge as it left with it's passengers.  I also have a short video of this run HERE if you would like to watch.

09/29/24

 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.

09/15/24

 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.

09/01/24

 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.

08/25/24

 It's Steamy Sunday here on the Blog!  Since I have been sharing cabs, I was told I should share this one too.  While extremely simplified, the important components exist in this one as well.  This is the cab of our Large Scale Ottaway locomotive.  The red valve in the middle is the main steam valve to the throttle.  to the left of that is the Sight Glass to let you know how much water is in the boiler, VERY important.  The gauge at the top is to let you know the pressure of the boiler, it was being tested on air so it is showing some pressure, about 100lbs.  The red handles on the right and left of the pipe in the rear are the valves to let steam into the Injectors (how you get water into the boiler) the water valves are those levers at the bottom which we have since changed to regular valves.  On the very right is the Reverser which actually is how you move forward or backward.  The 2 little valves above the round door where the wood or coal goes in are to manually check the level of water in the boiler.  If the steam is wet, you are good with the lower one.  Usually there are 3 and they are called Try Cocks.

06/30/24

 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.

06/23/24

It's Steamy Sunday here on the Blog!  I was in Minnesota last week doing steamy things at the Ortner railroad with the Wagner locomotive a 14 inch large scale engine.  I helped operate it for the 3 days of the weekend for Kids Day and Steam school.  During some quiet time I took a few images of it in different spots around the area.  This is by the station and Coaling Tower.  The Roundhouse which is going to be expanded can be seen in the back left.

02/25/24

 It's Steamy Sunday here on the Blog!  I am looking forward to warmer weather and being able to do steam things again.  This is our locomotive and passenger cars we restored.  It is at the C&H Railroad where we go play as we did this past autumn on a day off from work.  The locomotive is a 1947 Ottaway coal or wood fired steam engine that was built in Wichita Kansas.  It runs on rails that are 12 inches apart.

11/19/23

 It's Steamy Sunday here on the Blog!  Today's image is of our restored 1947 Ottaway locomotive and it's train in autumn on the C&H Railroad outside Topeka Kansas.  It was a lovely warm day in November last weekend and we ran our locomotive with the newly finished cars for friends and family.  The cars have been redone with wood siding to make them fit in more with the style of the locomotive.  The cars are named for the Yellowstone Survey people to make it a national park, the Moran (Thomas) - painter on the survey and Hayden (Ferdinand) - Leader.  Our locomotive is named the William Henry Jackson in honor of our favorite photographer who was on the survey as well.  We had a great time running that day and really appreciate the C&H letting us do it that day and the friends that helped load and unload as well.

There is a short video of the locomotive running on part of the railroad HERE.

The image was taken by a lovely tree in autumn colors behind the station.

11/5/23

 It's Steamy Sunday here on the Blog!  Last weekend I about froze my you know what 😅 off at the C&H railroad.  We were doing the Santa Run which is the last run of the season for this private railroad which operates just a few times per year and mostly by invitation.  It turned out to be a pretty good day despite the cold until it started to rain at around 12:30 in the afternoon.  Wet track and steam engines do not do well together, can't get traction very well with metal wheels on metal rail.  Larger locomotives have sand domes which allow sand to travel down a tube to the drive wheels to give some grip when a cord is pulled.

The image is of the owner of the C&H sitting with Santa Claus at the station.

I have a short video of this train running that morning located HERE.

10/29/23

 It's Steamy Sunday here on the Blog!  A couple of weekends ago, I got to go do something fun.  Just outside Saint Louis to the southwest is the Wabash Frisco & Pacific Railroad.  It is one of the very few 12 inch railroads like ours that can be found to visit.  The WF&P has been in existence since 1939 and has been operating in it's current location of Glencoe, Missouri since 1961.  They have a mile of track so its a 2 mile, 40 minute ride out and back.  This is the locomotive we got to ride behind.  The WF&P has 14 locomotives in total, some being restored.  The 928 is a beautiful locomotive with a great sounding whistle.  It is a Mountain type, 4-8-2 wheel arrangement and burns oil.  It's is the only locomotive that was built by the WF&P.  I have a very short YouTube video HERE where you can see it in operation and hear the whistle.

9/10/23

 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. 

4/9/23

 It's Steamy Sunday here on the Blog!  Today's image is a nice steamy shot of our 12 inch gauge Ottaway locomotive as it was blown down in the rain after a day of running.  You "blow down" the boiler to get rid of the pressure but also to remove any scale or debris that may be in the boiler such as rust flakes.  (Hopefully you don't have a lot of those).  Here is a link to some footage I took with our drone of it running before it rained, I may have shared this before.  WHJ Running