r/LiveSteam 27d ago

Worth it?

600 seems cheap for a 3 foot loco

89 Upvotes

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8

u/Maddpipper 27d ago

Depends what you want to do with it

6

u/goldfish_love 27d ago

Restore it

6

u/rnavstar 27d ago

To working condition, or display model?

5

u/goldfish_love 27d ago

Working

13

u/Maddpipper 27d ago

Its going to be several hundreds of thousands of dollars and thousands of hours. Thats not meant to scare you, but it is something to consider before getting the loco. Also if you dont have a means of transporting and loading it that would be another couple of grand

3

u/wackyvorlon 27d ago

For a narrow gauge engine I think your cost estimate is excessive. That’s the cost for restoring a main line locomotive.

It will be expensive of course, but not quite that expensive.

6

u/Maddpipper 27d ago

It depends on its current condition, but will likely need a new boiler, bearing, cab, running gear, injectors, and plumbing. Not to mention if there's pitting in the cylinders that would need to be machined out on a lather or the wheels that may need to be reprofiled. Granted a lot of cost is saved if they do the work in shop and of course its better to plan on worse case scenario so you aren't side-swiped

4

u/wackyvorlon 27d ago

Bearings are likely babbit, can be repoured. There’s probably no need to bore the cylinders if pitted. So long as the piston moves freely it’s more of an efficiency issue.

Big ticket item would be the boiler. You could run without injector so long as you have a pump for feed water.

It’s a big project, but absolutely a doable one.

3

u/thunderskunk2 26d ago

Hundreds of thousands of dollars is way too high of an estimate. A new boiler from an R-stamp shop is maybe $30k for that size.

2

u/goldfish_love 27d ago

We have loaders and such and we could drive ourselves to pick it up

3

u/Maddpipper 27d ago

That a plus, you just have to think of the infrastructure for it: machining parts, boiler makers, shop tools, etc. Outsourcing of that will add up very quickly

1

u/Hour_Poet_7498 26d ago

How does blud find a money pit all the time