Excellent!

Easily among the best shows so far. Great job by presenters Trevor and Jeff, presenting a fascinating topic in an accessible manner. Well done!

Jostein

Ahh, because grown men

Ahh, because grown men chasing after trains is so much more entertaining than just regular modelling.

On a serious note this does look like a good series and may check it out.

Not much chasing

Hi "Trainmaster247":

Hah - that's a good mental image. But no, we don't spend a lot of time having to chase them. At least, I don't think we did...

Jeff cleverly designed his layout to be a continuous run, so instead of chasing the trains we can wait until they come back to us. That said, catching them is a whole other matter. It takes talent to stop a locomotive weighing several pounds and moving at a good clip - even more so because almost everything on these steam-powered miniatures is hot.

Sometimes, I wish I had a catcher's mitt...

Cheers!

- Trevor

It was more joking, I really

It was more joking, I really respect these designs and quite like them.

I thought you were...

... but you raised a good point, so I thought I'd use the joke to answer it.

Live steam running - in general - is easier on a continuous run layout or loop to loop arrangement. That's not to say that a point-to-point layout cannot be built. In fact, with radio-controlled live steam it's even possible to run full-on operating sessions as people do on indoor layouts.

But trying to switch cars on a ground-level layout, with a manually-operated live steamer, might quickly encourage enthusiasts to check out what's on TV instead...

Cheers!

- Trevor

Sausages and Steam

in case you missed it, we've added a short Bonus video to this episode, called "Sausages and Steam" - in which Jeff and I enjoy a bit of post-segment barbecued goodness and run a train. It's our tribute to the highly social nature of the "live steam in the garden" niche of this hobby.

You can find a link to the video here:

http://trainmasters.tv/videos/2015-10-2-tmtv-oct-2015-edition-act-ii

​We will include one of these after each episode of Fired Up!, featuring a different sausage/mustard combination and a different locomotive in steam.

Enjoy if you watch!

-Trevor