Hey Jon,
I believe it is 1.5 inch. The first one I saw, seemed very strange to me. But, then Jan and I visited the B&O Railroad Museum with Andy and Jane Clarke and there it was sitting in the round house. It is a “Little Engines” product and was built by a gentleman in Indiana from a series of articles in Live Steam magazine. We took possession of it on July 4th, 2016 and that is why it is named “Liberty”. It is numbered “101” because it is my first class in my steam “higher education”. And it has been an education, believe me.
Ken,
Thanks for helping me get these pictures posted and good to talk to you this morning. I also appreciate “Rooster’s” help, getting them to show up. Yes, it is a plumbers nightmare and for the first couple of months, it was a lot to absorb. Now, I think I can say I know what every pipe and valve does. Maybe, we’ll see.
Let’s be simple and start on the other side, the right side, right being looking from the rear and the engineer’s view. Which is actually a miss statement, because on the full size prototype, the fireman was in the back and the engineer was in the front where the 2 gallon water tank is located on the 1.5 inch model.
The first pump of the 3 on this engine is the “Ram Pump” that is polished bronze and located right above the red piston. It is driven by the piston rod. And the rod of the “Rod Pump” is the polished piece of steel under the 1 and the 0. It is supplied with water from the brass water tank inside the front of the engine located behind the name “Liberty”. It pushes the water toward the boiler or returns it to the water tank depending on what way valves are turned. The water is sucked past a check valve in to the chamber of the “Rod Pump” and since it can’t return because of the same check valve it moves through the tube toward the boiler or
returned to the water tank. If you can follow the copper tubing, you can see where it will enter the boiler, wrapped in wood, through another check valve that prevents the steam pressure of the boiler from escaping down the copper tube toward the pump or return to the water tank through the tube on the roof right above the “b” of “Liberty”.
.
Is any of this making sense? Its actually good for me to write and analyze how this stuff works.
