Articles from March 2006

Figure Building

I was really intrigued when I read Chris Walas’ articles on figure building on MyLargeScale.com. Armed with all this good information, I started sculpting a figure: Engineer Bill.

Scratchbuilt Figure: Engineer "Bill"

He’s based on a photograph from the book “The Fossmill Story” and is designed to stand in the cab of my live steam Konrad engine. I found it much easier to get the proportions right working from a photograph. Here he is after painting:

Engineer Bill Painted

LHR Engine “Konrad”

My Regner Konrad on the Lost Hollow Railway

The first engine for my garden empire is a Regner Konrad. It is a very simple engine that uses a single oscillating steam cylinder to drive the wheels through a gear system. Reviews for the engine have been very positive and I bit the bullet and purchased one. Right out of the box, the Konrad was a bit too colourful for me and I set out to kitbash into a small turn-of-the-century logging locomotive. Here’s a list of things I changed:

  • Installed new wooden bumpers at both the front and rear.
  • Installed link and pins couplers back and front.
  • Repainted the underframe and cab from their red and green colours respectively to black.
  • Added a new more-to-scale engineer figure.

Konrad has been a delight to operate. I get about 15 minutes of running from a boiler full of water and a full fuel tank. Because of the gear system, the engine is quite powerful and moves a pretty consistent speed on level track. It handles the light grades on the LHR well.

I highly recommend anyone interested in live steam to take a good look at these Regner engines as their entry point into the hobby.