Gauge 1 steamup in Utah

[GailInNM]

For the umpteenth time I went to Utah for the Poison Creek Gauge 1 steamup. It is just a group of friends who get together to play trains. We come from Florida to British Columbia and just have fun. This year the weather did not cooperate too well with three days of rain and high temperatures for the day being in the mid 40's F. But we did not care too much. We steamed anytime the rain let up to a light drizzle and kept our hands warm on hot boilers and a fire pit near the steaming bay. When we could not steam, then it was time for lunch or swapping lies in the house or on the covered deck. Besides the cool weather and high humidit made for some wonderful steam plumes when running.

Here are some photos of the event. The four Heislers are ones that the host and I scratch built about 10 years ago. Notice the road number of 7-1/2 on the Heisler in the third photo. The road number for the prototype was 5. This engine went to a Canadian member of our group when the Canadian dollar was about $1.50 to US$1.00. Anytime one of us mentioned that something cost say $5 he would say that's $7.50 Canadian, so we temporarily lettered the locomotive with the 7-1/2 road number. He liked it so much that we made it permanent.

Gail in NM

 

[Dan Rowe]

Hi Gail,
Nice photos of Jim's layout and even one of Jim. I only wear my Poison Creek sweatshirt at Diamondhead.
Cheers Dan

 

[GailInNM]

Hi Dan,
Jim just finished his new track up enough for the steamup. This was the first one since the move. The slope on the terrain made it a challenge. He does not have a lot of landscaping in the track are yet but it will come. Still he was happy with the results and we all had fun.

Gail in NM

 

[shred]

That's a cute little G1 Heisler. Are plans for it available?

 

[Kaleb]

I've also been thinking of building a loco and a garden railway.

 

[zeeprogrammer]

Garden railway.
There's a thread talking about how/why we got into this hobby.
This is one of the reasons for me.
Thanks Gail.

 

[GailInNM]

shred.
We never did any formal plans for the Heislers. I did a lot of non dimensioned drawings in ACAD for the machining and then programed from the drawings for the parts done on the CNC. Much of the sheet metal work was done by cutting poster board and bending and trimming it until it looked right. Many the drawings were pencil sketches that would make no sense to any one, including me after this much time.

The general layout and many of the parts were from Kozo's book "Building the Heisler" and reduced to 1/2 scale from his drawings. Lots of changes to fit materials and tools on hand. The book is still in publication and is available for about $42 on Amazon with free shipping or from many other sources including the publisher for a bit more money. It is a very good book and could be used as the basis for building a Gauge 1 Heisler by just dividing all the dimensions in half and adjusting to fit your own personal preferences.

We changed much of the cosmetics to suit a slightly different prototype engine.

To save time, the six boilers were contracted out.

Gail in NM

 

[shred]

The general layout and many of the parts were from Kozo's book "Building the Heisler" and reduced to 1/2 scale from his drawings. Lots of changes to fit materials and tools on hand. The book is still in publication and is available for about $42 on Amazon with free shipping or from many other sources including the publisher for a bit more money. It is a very good book and could be used as the basis for building a Gauge 1 Heisler by just dividing all the dimensions in half and adjusting to fit your own personal preferences.
Gail in NM

Thanks. I know of Kozos Heisler book (and have his New Shay book, which is also good) but knew he usually works in a different scale. There's a guy here (Ed Hume) that scales them down as well and makes some spectacular models. I've been contemplating trying to do one in Gauge 0, but that might require either a lot of watchmaking or a lot of cut-corners