Live Steam Shay Double Header.

beavercreek

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I have an old 2 cylinder live steam shay and a newer 3 cylinder version (both working manually). Usually they ply the rails on their own pulling a string of cars up and down my very heavy (1:10) inclines.
They can pull a few cars but I was wondering how they would do hauling some heavy stuff if lashed together, so……..

2 shay double header pulling through Beaver creek station.jpg

3 shay double header pulling out of baever yards.jpg

4 shay double header approaching the incline.jpg

4a shay double header passing diner.jpg

5 shay double header long view.jpg

6 shay double header climbing to Arbour Summit.jpg

7 shay double header struggling to the summit.jpg

8 shay double header breasting the summit.jpg

9 shay double header beginning descent.jpg

10 shay double header on the descent.jpg

12 shay double header into pointrock.jpg
 
I love my track-powered Shay - it's such a fascinating piece of machinery - but to watch and hear a live steam model must be absolute magic!

And you are running two....
 
Looks like a very nice run on a very scenic layout. Did you have to continually tweak the throttles, or did they run smoothly? A friend & I once double-headed our 2-cyl. R/C Shays & we were continually adjusting to make sure one engine or the other wasn't taking the entire drag. We sure had fun, though!
 
Looks like a very nice run on a very scenic layout. Did you have to continually tweak the throttles, or did they run smoothly? A friend & I once double-headed our 2-cyl. R/C Shays & we were continually adjusting to make sure one engine or the other wasn't taking the entire drag. We sure had fun, though!

I had found their individual 'speed' by timing each of them over a set distance at a certain setting of gas, regulator and reverser until I found the 'balanced' setting.
In fact they are a really complimentary pairing.
The older 2 cylinder shay is 'looser' and does speed up a bit on the down gradient whilst the newer 3 cylinder one is pretty constant up or down. This meant that the new 3 cylinder held back the old 2 cylinder when travelling down the incline and they both worked nice and hard when going up.
 
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