Empire & South Eastern #4    A 1/8 scale live steam locomotive

1	2	3	4	5
6	7	8	9	10
11	12	13	14	15
16	17	18	19	20
21	22	23	24	25
26	27	28	29	30

Photo credits and notes:
  1-5 Steve Beck, Oct 21, 2000 (those are Steve's kids on the train)
          1 - at the station
          2 - 5 servicing the engine in the yards
  6-10 me, Sep 17, 2000
         you can see the glow of the fire in #9
  11-13 Nina Childs, Sep 17, 2000
         11 - My daughter Stacy (center, with video camera) and Mid-Michigan RR Club member Mike Perigo share thoughts about steam railroading.  Half visible at the right is my sister Jeannie, the truck driver.
         12 - Dad and I in the yards  (he's not always that grumpy looking).
         13 - Maximum effort, there's 9 people on that train (we've since done better ).  That's our speeder on the left.
 14-15  Jeremy Brown, May 20, 2001
 16  Jeremy Brown, May 2002
 17  Richard Carlstedt, June 21, 2002
 18-20 Jeremy Brown, June 21, 2002
         19 - approaching the Green River Bridge on Russ Eldred's White Creek Railroad
  21  me,  June 19, 2004 - Dad is running the steam engine, and that's my electric on the next track.
  22-24  Larry Kepner, Sept 25, 2004 - Pulling out of Hidden Valley yard on the White Creek RR.
          Larry is the passenger on the train in photo #21.
  25-28  Fran Schafer, June 2004
         25 - kind of dark, but I had to include it - that's a PRR Q2 4-4-6-4 duplex sitting on the siding.     
         26 - don't step on the track like that.  Stacy is tending the fire wile I go take a closer look at the Q2.
         27 & 28 - Them are $9,000 worth of passenger cars.  No they aren't ours.  I wish.
 29  Tim  II (my son) - fixing the electric, or how I spend my weekends when I'm not running trains.
 30  Fred Smith   May 30, 2005 - Waiting for the signal to clear just below the tunnel.

Locomotive Statistics

 Scale - 1/8, also known as 1-1/2 inch scale (as in 1.5" to the foot).  Track guage is 7-1/2 inches.
 Weight - we don't really know.  We guess between 500 and 800 lbs.
 Fuel - coal
 Valve Gear - Southern with screw reverse
 Driver diameter - 10"
 Bore & Stroke - 2 5/8" x 3 1/2"
 Boiler - 10" dia, 10 flues of 1 1/4" OD,  max operating pressure 125 lbs
 Feed water system - two cylinder single acting axle pump (0.5" x 0.75") with a feed water heater composed of
                                 3/8" copper tubing coiled up inside the smoke box..
                              - one Superscale "economy" injector.
 Booster -  Chain drive to trailing truck.
 Throttle - 3/8" ball valve in smoke box
 Lights - Working head, marker, cab, and truck lights powered by steam turbogenerator.
              The headlight is a flashlight reflector mounted in a plastic nut off of a failed garage door opener.  The marker
              lights are made from 1/2 inch copper pipe Ts, and the cab and truck lights are shell casings.
 Brakes - steam pressure operated shoe brakes on the locomotive drivers,
               vacuum operated shoe brakes on all tender wheels.  Vacuum is generated by a steam ejector.

 Q.  Is that a real steam engine?
 A.  Yes, it is.

 Q.  What do you use for fuel?
 A.  Coal.

 Q. Where do you get coal these days?
 A.  City Coal Yard, 116 N Depot St., Brazil, IN.  (812) 448-8128
            We burn the West Va. Pocahontas #3 stoker coal (also known as forge coal)

 Q.  How much did it cost?
 A.  We haven't bothered to add it up.  Actual cash outlay was probably in the $3,000 to $4,000 range (if you don't count time, mileage, a nicely equipped machine shop, and other incidentals).

 Q.  How fast will it go.
 A.  We don't know.  Faster than would be considered safe.  We had it wound up to 11 or 12 miles/hour on the test stand once while is was running on compressed air.  When you have several hundred pounds of very hot steel between your legs, it inspires caution.

Q.  How much will it pull?
 A.  It has pulled 9 car trains with up to 12 passengers, and 12 car trains with 2 passengers over grades of 2-1/2 to 3% without any problem.  Moving trains of this size isn't difficult, but stopping them can get "interesting".  The only time we've ever "not made the grade" was with 7 cars and 2 passengers on a 8% grade - it was slipping, so it was limited by adhesion, not power.

Q. Where do you run it?  Do you have a track at your house?
A.  No, no track at home.  No room.  We run at at the Mid-Michigan Railroad club track at Turkeyville , near Marshall, Michigan.  We also run at other club and private tracks in Michigan and Indiana.

 Q. What's the "Empire and South Eastern"?
 A.  The E&SE was a real railroad that ran from Empire, Michigan south and east to Empire Junction, where it interchanged with the Manistee & North Eastern.  It mostly served lumber camps in the area, along with a little passenger and interchange freight traffic.  The E&SE was built in the 1880s and lasted into the early 1910s.  It had 3 locomotives, a 2-4-0T, a 4-4-0, and a 2-6-0.  Dad spent his childhood summers in Empire, where the remnants of the railroad could still be found.
The text of a 1909 Michigan Railroad Commission report on the E&SE can be found here.
A picture of  E&SE's passenger train can be found here.

Q. What is that funky looking thing on the back of your train in the first picture?
 A. That's our "speeder".  Dad built that first so we'd have something to play with until we got a real locomotive.   It is self propelled, powered by a 1-1/2 horsepower Reo lawn mower engine (ca. late 1940s).  It often gets used as a caboose and conductors car when we're pulling passengers.  It's also visible on the left in photo 13.

  Q.  What's a "speeder".
  A.  A speeder is a small self-propelled rail vehicle used to transport maintenance of way personnel and materials to work sites along the tracks.  The widest known make was the Fairmont.  From 1911 to 1991, nearly 73,000 Fairmont motor cars were manufactured. With the widespread switch to Hy-rail vehicles, only a few are in use by railroads today.
A photo of a 1945 Fairmont can be found here:  http://www.hcry.org/collection_1941_393.html
A more modern version can be seen here: http://www.lightrail.com/photos/edmonton/edmonton16.JPG

  Q.  Where did you get the rest of your train?
  A.  Various places.  The two wooden flat cars (see pict 1 and 17) were completely home made by Dad from plans in Live Steam magazine.  The other flat car (partly visible in picts 14, 18 & 20)  I purchaced from my good friend David Wentworth, who very kindly let me use it for several years prior to selling it to me.  We call it the "cast iron monster" 'cause it seems to weigh almost as much as the locomotive.  The milk crate and boat cushion seats have since been replaced with more permanent arrangements.  The blue "T car" (photos 1, 12, 13) belongs to the Mid-Michigan club and was constructed by Morris RR Supplies.

 Q. What else are you guys up to?
 A.  Dad is working on a caboose.  I have an electric locomotive under construction.

Other Interesting questions and comments

2008 Run Schedule

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