The Home Machinist!

CVLS was the first club my father and I attended. Scott Lewis was actually the one who got us into the live steam hobby. The main loop isn't huge, but I remember the expansion loop being much longer than it appeared. I also remember the catered tacos being amazing. Did anything ever come of the inte...

Last two pages.

I have all eight volumes of Audels Mechanics and Engineers Guide from 1921 . While it appears from the book's title that the use of apostrophes was not well understood in 1921, the understanding of valve gear was quite thorough. As I have not been able to find a step-by-step guide on designing valve...

My father built a 1:1 wooden replica of a FRED in 2007 as a visual aid for teaching the Railroading Merit Badge (which we did for 9 years back in California). Naturally, once we got a train of our own, a smaller FRED was in order. Unfortunately, technology in the year 2011 required that he use a lar...

The system works well enough. We intended it mostly as a parking brake (our long-term goal is a pilgrimage to Train Mountain), and it is quite capable of holding the train. The reservoir has enough capacity for well over 100 application cycles (I lost count while testing in the garage), and the cyli...

The first major modification we made was to add brakes. We purchased the Real Trains brake mounting kit (shoes and hangars) either with the locomotive or shortly after it arrived. I learned to tap while preparing the holes in the truck frames, sitting under a pop-up canopy in the driveway of our old...

Hello all. I have been reading these forums for some time, but I've finally gotten around to posting something. My father and I purchased Real Trains electric Plymouth number 0072, along with a three-seat riding car, in 2011. We have attended several meets since around 2010, but I don't remember see...