Dave Perry hosted the BAGRS Live Steamers on August 11th and by all accounts they had a great time. Friday August 10th brought the occurrence of an electrical blackout on almost the entire West Coast, but BAGRS Live Steamers knew that this would have absolutely no impact on the planned steamup the next day. A run on distilled water might have given us a bit of grief, but 110V AC... who needs it? Dave has offered to make an August steamup a regular on the BAGRS calendar and we'll take him up on it, blackout our no blackout.
Mike Martin took all of these photographs but wasn't able to stay long. He says he has an amendment to the previously published list of Steamup Rules: "Never take your pager with you to a steamup." The usual list of suspects showed up, with notable performances from Kevin O'Conner's Frank S., much modified to create a true endurance live steamer.
The BAGRS Live Steamers Project Locomotive, as designed and built by Mike Martin, debuted at the August steamup. Watch for complete information on the Project in this newsletter, Steam in the Garden magazine, or online at http://www.steamup.com. The design draws inspiration from an earlier locomotive designed by Douglas Gardner. BAGRS Live Steamers selected this project because of the inherent American "flavor", easy availability of commercial parts, and easily achievable construction methods. Mike has done a fabulous job of pulling the design and documentation together and will be sharing it with us shortly The burner capacity yields about 6-8 minutes of running, but Mike reports that Jim McDavid has designed a meths burner that results in 20 minute runs! Also, there are rumors of coal fired Projects in the air...
Many thanks to Dave Perry for hosting a steamup, hope to see a big turnout at Jim's in September.