Garden Railway Forum

I'm planning to start in live steam with a Regner Max microlock.
This loco looks great, very simple to use and not very expensive.
All your advices are welcome ! Thanks by advance.

Never used one but Regner locos have a good reputation. This little VB engine looks a nice way to start in live steam.

These are very simple and very small locos, probably not the best to buy as your first loco unless you only want to pull a few small tipper wagons around a level track for 10 minutes. You also have to pay an extra £100 or thereabout to get a gas burner as it only comes with a sterno burner which does not allow you to adjust the fire. It would be better to pay £200 more and buy a larger Regner or Accucraft engine.

Thanks. This project has been cancelled. I'm now looking for another loco...any idea ?

All the Regner Easy line locos are pretty good and being geared the manual versions are easy to control. The Accucraft and Roundhouse UK starter locos are good but prices have now risen to around £700. If you run 45mm gauge there are some cheaper US Accucraft locos.

Have a chat with Simon at Anything Narrow Gauge, or try GRS in Princess Risborough.

Mamod Ltd Mk2 loco. Best in the range. Gas burner silver soldered. Ask to get a pre run jobby (tested)

Danno

My first loco is/was a Regner Willie bought off FleeBay. It has proved a sound and reliable runner.
Second loco was/is a Ruby bought off FleeBay, a bit more troublesome to get going but now successful.
Third loco is an MSS wobbler bought new. I still haven't got this one going reliably even with the spirit burner.
My latest loco is an old Aster Fulgarex (FleeBay again) which I had to work on to get going but works most times; still work to do, probably the spirit burner.

Summary, the Willie or the Max will be a good entry level loco.

Thanks for your advices.
This project is just delayed for a little while...

Glendale Junction seem to be one of the few UK shops with locos in stock at the moment and seem to be the cheapest with Willi & Konrad in stock for £499.

http://www.glendalejunction.co.uk/Regner.html

Thanks for the link. Glendale Junction is no longer shipping abroad.
But I found a french retailer for Regner and many other brand:
http://www.atelier-vaporiste.com/WWW2/s ... =RE&lng=en

steam4ian:101476 wrote:Third loco is an MSS wobbler bought new. I still haven't got this one going reliably even with the spirit burner.

Have patience with this one - when I had one http://www.mdlr.co.uk/loco17.html it ran reasonably well, but I took it to Elsecar and ran it and ran it.................... At first, it wouldn't go around the layout without finger assistance, but as I carried on it went further and further before requiring a prod and at the end of the day it was running beautifully!

Ah, but yours was a Mamod Mark I Brian, which is a totally different spec to the basic MSS loco's.

MSS's like the original Mamod SL's suffer from varying quality control/toy manufacturing tolerances so it seems to be less than a 50/50 chance if you get one that works straight out of the box.

Both my oscillators from Mamod (The Mamod Train which was later renamed as the Mark I, and a Mark II) both ran straight out of the box and both achieved a run on track on their first boiler fill.

My new MSS Saddle Tank failed to run due to several problems, and it was obvious my kit MSS would equally not have run if I had not tweaked it during the build process.

Chris Cairns

For what it is worth, I sell a loco every time I get sticky with money. i.e. if the car fails big time. The Roundhouse always stays. It runs sweet and says," I'll do this for ages!" Loved my Mamod Mamod Mk2 but you get what you pay for on the whole. Try to spend as much as poss on the Loco and do tell us what you buy in the end. Don't buy old stuff till you get experiance. Locos hold there value so see it as a place to store the money not a money waste. All the best.

Many thanks. But I'm only looking for a Regner.
They are built in Germany and this country is very close to France.

They all seem made well. Max is a budget loco and a tad weady, the others work great and have good reputations.

Hey guys have you seen that new Mountain rack and pinion loco Geroge? Now, lets build a mountain in the garden. WOnder what the missus would say..Ha!

I´m a fan too of Regner and their Easyline range are fun and move at scale speeds. Don´t be surprised though if they sometimes are difficult to light or keep lit, especially the vertical boilered ones.

Et à bientôt

steamie1:101533 wrote:They all seem made well. Max is a budget loco and a tad weady, the others work great and have good reputations.

Hey guys have you seen that new Mountain rack and pinion loco Geroge? Now, lets build a mountain in the garden. WOnder what the missus would say..Ha!

I´ve got the Rigi No 7 rack railway locomotive, but unfortunately it was delivered without the R/C that I definitely need.

The Achimseebahn "Georg" won´t be available until the end of the year for delivery, according to the Regners, but they will be demonstrating it this summer at the 125 year anniversary of the line. Worth a trip if anyone has free time and cash

Merci pour toutes vos réponses / Many thanks for all your answers.