History of the locomotive builds
I have started building my first locomotive in 1981, based upon the published design of “Gezina” and “Gea” in the dutch model magazine “De Modelbouwer”. This design is a free-lance model, based upon the Orenstein & Koppel 0-4-0 contractors locomotive. A design for an operational steam model, on 3½” track, in narrow gauge. So a building scale of ± 1:11 .
This is my first Live Steam locomotive to be built..The construction of two locomotives started in January 1981, and the first run on Alberdina on a track was performed, on October 2, 2010 !! So after almost 30 years of building a real success ! This section of the website contains background information on the locomotive itself, and my construction activities.
In the real world many of these locomotives had a female name, often within the family of the contractor’s company. I named it “Alberdina”, my mother’s name.
In 2010, the first steam tests were performed using this locomotive. This is a picture of my first test of the Alberdina, and a link to a YouTube recording.
Second locomotive
From the start (yes in 1981) of building my model, I also produced the parts and assemblies for a second locomotive of the same design, yet to be named… While performing the first test runs with the Alberdina, I discovered some mistakes in the drawings and in my construction. Therefore I decided to start quickly with the assembly of this second locomotive, omitting these problems.
It was running on compressed air in late 2011, and I had the first steam trials in the winter of 2012-2013.