In the Beginning, God Created Steam...

This whole thing started one day after completing another project and was looking for something new to do.  Steam always interested me having built steam turbines as a science fair project in high school.  Browsing through an old Little Engines catalog kept me dreaming about building one some day.  Well that day came.  I just had to decide what type engine to build along with what scale to choose.  I decided to build a Southern Pacific Daylight GS-4 in 1/8" scale to run on 7-1/2" track.  This is a Northern 4-8-4 and is big and heavy.  I didn't know much about metal working except for some welding I've done and I didn't know much about steam locomotives either.  I was driven to plow ahead and purchased a set of "New Northern" plans from "Little Engines" and began studying them.  I was looking for a live steam club so I could learn from the experts.  To my amazement, the Illinois Live Steamers were just a few miles from my house.  It was fate!  After 11 years and over 5000 hours, here's what was done.

If you want to see what this journey was all about, click this away... 

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