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A month ago on a "Parts Safari" looking for items for
one of my Hot Rod Projects,
I found this Child's ridable Train Engine.
Had my 8 year old Grandson come up, and a Trip to the Junk Yard so he could make the Final Inspection and Price Negotiations (of course it's "Grandpa's Money")
SO we are NOW the Proud Owners of a ALCO FA diesel engine, which we have No Clue who built it, or any idea of what we are going to run it on !! But the "Build" is going to be the fun part.
Here is what we bought.
Hopefully I can get pictures to come through.
We are looking for ANY information on who made these engines ?
What was the Original Powering System ?
And Are Any Parts Suppliers available ?
This poor thing has been Butchered with a Torch to put a Briggs Lawnmower engine in it. It is a Very Crude Belt drive by moving the entire engine back and forth.
So my Grandson is Having a HOOT with it's first "Look See" in my Shop.
Found out why we thought the engine was "Stuck"....
Surprise !!
A Mouse House !!
Again,
Any Leads to help us with Rebuilding it RIGHT, and
Maybe a Full Restoration.
What you have is a 1/8 Scale (1.5" to the Foot) "model" locomotive, lots of times the clubs that have that stuff are known as live steamers, they have working steam engines in addition to diesels (they started out as just steam, hence the name live steamers). I found this list which may help you locate a local club: https://www.discoverlivesteam.com/A-clubs.htm
Clubs run different scales and therefore different gauges, common are: 4 3/4 and 7.5 (sometimes its 7.25) gauges.
And its not just for kids to ride on. Typically adults ride/control the engine pulling strings of cars behind with kids and other other adults riding on them.
A famous live steam club is Train Mountain in Oregon with over 32 real miles of 7.5 inch gauge track. For details on that see: https://trainmountain.org/
Thank You.
I will start with the Local Wisconsin listings and see if anyone else was Crazy Enough to have bought something like this.
My Grandson lives 2 hours away, and at 8 years old, there are School Activities in his schedule too.
So it will be a Fun inside Build over the he Winter here in the Frozen Tundra where Snow gets Bung Hole Deep on a Tall Moose !
Thank You,
I will look up their site.
Please if you could, put the word out if you are planning on attending the event, that we have this project.
I'm sure we are not the owners of the Only One left on the Planet.....LOL
Good Morning
Well, we have had only one good return contact, and it is that club in Oregon with 32 miles of track.
They have no leads yet, but want my Grandson to post pictures of his progress on it.
This weekend he is coming up to start the Disassembly.
Then we can start on the Sanding, and sanding some more......he is 8 year old, so a lot of Hand Sanding. (Later Grandpa will use the orbital sander with him)
Again, Any Leads will Greatly help us get it running RIGHT.
So many (all?) of these organizations have volunteers doing things and some are still employed (i.e. not retired). This means lots of times it takes a few contacts to get a response. Also if you can attend an event they are holding, run day, even club business meeting that might get you in touch with someone. Some organizations might even do things with online meetings, e.g. google meet or zoom. I don't normally recommend attending a business meeting as that will likely have discussion and debates of things that are not of interest at all to you.
I know its winter in Wisconsin, but don't give up on the local live steam clubs. You might also look into Milwaukee Light Engineering Society (MLES), located in Cedarburg, Wisconsin. I know someone from the Madison area, more into model railroading, but if your in that area I can ask him about live steam clubs in the area.
Thank You for your help !!
We have attended the Madison Model Train Show for the several past years.
This would be a good place to look for contacts.
Both of my Grandsons have HO scale trains.
Ryker is the Gearhead of the two, and this project is right up his alley !
We will reach out to more clubs further away. I live in Central Wisconsin, and my Grandson Ryker lives between Madison and Milwaukee.
Cool find. I don't know anything about this, but from the pictures it might have been a "one off", including the engine. Several years ago while traveling through West Virginia, we stopped at this backwoods brewery. They had this large oval mini railroad where they used steel "L" shapes for rail, screwed into home cut ties made from treated wood. Maybe you could lay down few feet of it in your backyard to see how it works. Your local small motor shops might be helpful in getting that motor to run.
Thank You for your Great ideas. For what it is worth, I found some actual miniature rail in a Junk Yard.
Six ten foot straight lengths.
I think they were for a small shop bridge crane.
I will have to go back to purchase them as I was there with my Jeep Cherokee and had no way to get them home.
Sorry for the late response, but the site was acting wonky, would not let me sign in, or even view as a guest.
EXCELLENT NEWS !!
After this couple of months of searching.......
About a hour ago......
HIT Pay Dirt !!
Found it searching a 7.5" gauge sale site. (Kinda like Craigslist)
Party Hats and Drinks for Everybody!!
These were made only for a few years by Doepke Model Toys Company around 1955-1960.
They came issued in a Battery Operated unit, and a Gasoline Engine unit.
The Gasoline Engine unit used a 1.75 HP Clinton Engine. And found some general pictures of a unit with the original gas engine set up. Now we have GOOD references to go from.
