sneak preview before the Llanfair show. As usual, appalling quality movie with a duration of a gnat’s fart.
But…just look at that thing!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1S1dhQnyJt0
It’s a model of the K1 Beyer-Garratt locomotive, two of which were built for Tasmania around 1903. The VERY first K1 is back in UK and running in steam on the Welsh highland Railway.
tac
ovgrs
Oh I like that. But I won’t ask, because I know I can’t afford it.
Post deleted
Balderdash. It’s well-known in these parts that ALL Americans are millionaires, at the very least. This loco is going to be around £4000 - maybe a tad more - IOW, weekend spending money for most Americans, right?
Right! It wasn’t that many years ago that would wrap coins, so that I could cash them in at the bank, hoping to end up with enough money, so I could buy enough gasoline, so I could go to work. Just this year I quit collecting scrap aluminum, to earn a bit more spending money, so I could run my railroad.
Most narrow gauge railroads, in this country, ran on a shoestring budget, on the edge of bankruptcy. Until recently, mine was no exception.
I always wanted a Garrett, and that one is sized right for my little railroad. 4,000 pounds sounds like a lot of money. So I will just drool from a distance.
David Maynard said:
Balderdash. It’s well-known in these parts that ALL Americans are millionaires, at the very least. This loco is going to be around £4000 - maybe a tad more - IOW, weekend spending money for most Americans, right?
Right! It wasn’t that many years ago that would wrap coins, so that I could cash them in at the bank, hoping to end up with enough money, so I could buy enough gasoline, so I could go to work.
Me, too, Maynard. I’ve always been a millionaire. That’s why when I was a kid I would search the floor and in-between the seats of my $150 Chevy to find lost change so I could buy almost two gallons of gas (50-60 cents worth, gas wars).
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TAC,
Any idea why it is so much more expensive than the Roudnhouse Darjeeling Garratt, which is £3000 versus the £3695.00 for the K1 quoted on the GRS website ?
PETE - it is my opinion, based only on fact, that the RH Darjeeling loco uses a whole lot of components that are common to a lot of other RH products, and TBH, I see very little innovation in that model, even down to the slot-head screws used to hold the buffer beams on. The cylinders are common RH cylinders, the wheels and much of the valve gear are common parts and so on. The cab is a piece of bent metal on four rods and by contrast with the overwhelming level of detail present on most Accucraft models, to me it looks very simplistic. but then, I HAVE an Accucraft NGG16.
Add to that the fact that RH have a more-or-less guaranteed audience who would buy a cowpat if it was made by RH, and they have it made.
Nothing at all wrong with RH - on the contrary, they make beautiful stuff that goes on forever, as, indeed they should at the prices they charge for them. I truly winced when buying my £1100 ‘Harlech Castle’ a year or so back, which has the least convincing sound system I’ve heard in my life. I was so concerned about it that I sent it back to the Doncaster factory to have it checked out, but it seems that that is the way it was made…ho hum.
By contrast, almost everything you can name, component-wise, of the Accucraft loco is brand-new, and it shares nothing with any other loco I can think of, externally, that is.
All that innovation, and the relatively few numbers that they will sell, by contrast with the few hundred Darjeeling Ds, will bring the price up, no matter who makes it, and where. As an aside, it’s interesting to note that every single Accucraft NGG16 I’ve seen for sale second-hand has been priced the same as, or slightly more than it cost when new.
If I had the funds, I’d be joining the lucky few, but my days of buying big bucks models are long gone.
tac
OVGRS
Apologies to all for any offence my posts may have caused. They were not intended to be upsetting or offensive in any way.
tac
tac Foley said:
Apologies to all for any offence my posts may have caused. They were not intended to be upsetting or offensive in any way.
tac
I don’t see anything offensive about not having the disposable income to buy a model that cost what a used car would cost.
I made a K1 (photo below) a few years ago using Roundhouse components ie. two “Billy” running gear kits for the power bogies, smoke box, gas tank. The boiler was made locally to be longer than Roundhouse standard. Radio control was fitted. Looked great but did not run well. After running about fifty metres it would run out of steam and have to stop for a brew up.
It is now sitting on a shelf in my shed while I decide what to do with it. Options are to replace the boiler and smokebox or to take the easy route and shut steam off from one power bogie so that it is then operating like a standard loco.
Regards
Peter Lucas
MyLocoSound
Or, run the exhaust steam from one set of cylinders to the inlet of other set of cylinders, making it a compound. Usually the low pressure cylinders are larger, but making it a compound would give you a bit more power then just disconnecting a set.
Peter - is your movie on Youtube? It’s a HUGE file, eh?
tac
OVGRS
tac Foley said:
Peter - is your movie on Youtube? It’s a HUGE file, eh?
tac
OVGRS
Tac, if you’re asking me, then no. It isn’t my video.
Ah, wrong Peter - my query was aimed at Peter Lucas. Sorry to cause confunglement. (redface)
tac
OVGRS
There is a LOT on this video, taken in Zurich earlier this year, of a 2.5" to the foot scale K1
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LLQq6YS9veo
Enjoy!
tac
Ottawa Valley GRS
Peter Lucas said:
I made a K1 (photo below) a few years ago using Roundhouse components ie. two “Billy” running gear kits for the power bogies, smoke box, gas tank. The boiler was made locally to be longer than Roundhouse standard. Radio control was fitted. Looked great but did not run well. After running about fifty metres it would run out of steam and have to stop for a brew up.
It is now sitting on a shelf in my shed while I decide what to do with it. Options are to replace the boiler and smokebox or to take the easy route and shut steam off from one power bogie so that it is then operating like a standard loco.
Regards
Peter Lucas
MyLocoSound
Peter, this is really easy for me to say, as I don’t have to do the work but I’d love to see it re-boilered. You did a fantastic job on that and it looks outstanding. I would imagine with a well thought out boiler that it would have some very impressive pulling power. How does it’s current boiler size compare to the prototype? Do you have room to go larger or do you have to make the same size produce more steam?
Edit: for picture
@ Peter Lucas - what a beautiful job you made of that, Sir. My head is uncovered in your honour. You really MUST get a suitable boiler made for it - if not in the US of A, then over here in UK where there is almost a boiler-maker on every street corner.
Now, I went to the Llanfair show this weekend, and got a REALLY close look at the new Accucraft K1. I took a load of pics, too, that I’m sending to various people in the hope that they can be posted here.
Tid-bits of detail -
the lining is correctly white and pale blue.
It will have a heater coil for the gas-tank so that there will be no need to use warm water - that quickly cools into uselessness - to maintain the gas at a working pressure.
It will be gauge adjustable - 32/45.
It will have coal rails for those who wish to run it as built.
It has TWO superheaters.
The UK price will be the same as the far-less detailed RH Class D, which has shiny toy-like paint and visible screw-heads and toy-like valve gear. By contrast, the K1 has working and only very slightly-simplified Walschaert gear of scale dimensions and a whale of hard to see detail on a black model, as I found out the hard way.
All-in-all, it is a truly magnificent model in every respect, and well-worth the admittedly high price by yesterday’s standards - ie, the same as the original Accucraft Ngg/16.
However, this is 2016, not 2008, and things have moved on in the financial world at an astonishing level since those heady days of cheap Garratts.
Apart from the home market - Garden Railway Specialists of Princes Risborough and Simon of ‘Anything Narrow Gauge’ - no doubt others as well - the loco will be available in the USA and from our friend Gordon Watson in Oz.
tac
Ottawa Valley GRS
@ Ken - I’m getting a mailer daemon message - have you changed your email again?
Besp
t
OVGRS