We're planning for our appearance in the Enid train show coming up on April 9th, 2011. I want to build, with LEGO, a steam powered train and have been searching for plans and photos.
I came across a good plan on Railbricks that I like. Tim Gould posted the plan for a western train locomotive that was originally posted on Brickshelf. I sat yesterday afternoon building from the instructions - although I was missing some of the parts needed. There were a few times I had difficulty figuring out where a piece needed to go, but with help managed to finally get the hang of it. Here's my "finished" piece, with odd colors - or nothing - for the missing correct pieces.
Now don't laugh yourself silly at my attempt. We'll order wheels and unusual parts this week and I should soon have a completed engine. I didn't build the tender or the cars yet. Those will wait until I have all the parts. Tim does a good job with his parts list and I only had trouble one time with what may have been an error on his part or a misunderstanding on mine.
I am building from Tim's plan, but already know that I want to modify this train. I plan to build others so looked for photos of steam locomotives and found RailServe. This particular link gives a long list of links for various websites that show steam locomotives. These are some of the photos I found:
And there is this fabulous picture which does't show any detail but is wonderful to look at!
When I was a teenager - a thousand years ago - my family vacationed in Colorado and we rode the Durango to Silverton train. That was my first steam locomotive train ride (although not my first train ride) and a life-changing trip. I rode outside on the back platform all the way up into the mountain and back down again. Several years ago I rode a steam locomotive train in the Brecon mountains in Wales - another lovely trip as I stood outside on the platform.
Back to the LEGO train - below is a photo of the one I plan to build after I've finished the one started above. It will be without instruction, but I should have an idea by then what I'm doing.
