What makes up a small-scale live steamer?
They share the basic characteristics with all live steamers: they burn some sort of fuel to boil water and move cylinders. They may differ from electric trains in the same scale in that they typically have actual working parts such as valve gear, pressure gauges, relief valves, feedwater pumps, etc. (That is, the gauges show actual pressure, and the valve gear controls actual steam going into cylinders which really drive the wheels.) They may differ from larger live steamers in that their mechanical design is (often) simpler. Fuels are usually butane, methylated alcohol (“meths”) or solid fuels (rare), while larger steamers tend to burn coal or fuel oil. Modeling detail spans a wide range: a live steamer will happily run with no more than a boiler, cylinders, valves and pushrods. Aster and others make super-detailed scale models. There are many other models which fall in between these extremes. The little live steamers typically pull rolling stock which is also seen behind large-scale
