Database of Small Steam Engine Designs

I remember when I first started looking at building a steam engine I was blown away by the amount of data spread thinly all over the internet. I managed to glean bits here and there but there wasn't any one place that held all the info. As a result I've started building a Wiki page covering as many locomotives as I can.


Small Live Steam Engines

I intend to cover as many designs as possible, and for those not familiar with Wikis (I apologise to those who are), a Wiki is intended that anyone can edit it with salient information. Therefore although the pages are currently a little thin I am hoping that over time they will grow as those with relevant facts will add them and make a decent database.

The page isn't a forum, it isn't for profit (I don't receive a penny and never will), its just intended to be a useful resource or interesting read. At the moment it is neither of those things, but if anyone fancies editing a page or two (its very simple I promise) or even adding new locomotives, please feel free to do so. I hope it helps people once its fattened up a bit. I'm adding as much as I can as I go, but most of the time what I'm able to add is quite skeletal. If you have any facts to add you would be most welcome.

Thank you, and I apologise if this violates any rule, the Sticky on protocol for this area of the Forum didn't work, but I understand if you need to remove it.

Jon,

A great idea but a site that anyone can edit is prone to sabatage. Not everyone has good intentions. A 2 stage system where input was verified would be safer.

Paul.

[This posting has been removed]

I do have one big question

If the site is being shut down etc is it possible to gather the entire site into a single file for transferring to another home?

Otherwise thousands of hours of effort is totally wasted

I have seen this both with Yahoo and wiki, huge repositories of useful human labour lost by dumb policies or commercial takeovers because they could not be downloaded and moved by a dedicated creator

I presume that the named site will be in a folder on the server, but can you access it kind of thing

Both for correcting vandalism and for protecting "your creation"

Sites often give themselves full rights to your sites data, in return it would be equitable to give you full rights to storing it offline

GL btw

Edited By Ady1 on 29/12/2018 09:43:38

Good points all, I'll look into it. With Wikipedia the veracity of the data is maintained through the sheer numbers of people who want it right compared to those who wish it harm. On a smaller site that balance is harder to maintain.

Thanks for all the support, much appreciated. I will investigate the "backing-up" of the data as thats a very valid point.

Certainly an interesting idea if it works out as I often have to google a design mentioned on here to see what it is. Could be extended to cover other ME stuff eg clocks.
On another forum last year someone tried setting up a Model Engineering wiki which I put some effort into but he dropped it after a few weeks as it wasn't getting general support.
One side effect of making it too easy to download is that someone will do just that, add adverts and start to profit from others' work. I believe that happened to John's Lathes site and I occasionally run into content from an old site of mine for SADMES club from 15 years ago.

If it is still accessible, you may be able to archive a site using wget and save copy to your own PC. It runs in a command prompt and is not for the faint of heart, but includes pretty good instructions and examples.

Tim

Some fantastic input so far, many thanks.

I think it's a great idea so long as you can get enough people to contribute. I do think it may be worth having it set so you need to approve posts though as before long some idiot with no steam engine knowledge with think it funny to ruin someone elses work.

I'm not really into locomotives but ought to be able to add something to your stationary engines section.

That would be fantastic Gas Mantle. We are over fifty pages now. With Vandalism, as long as those who want things to be right outnumber those who wish to ruin it we should be ok. Vandalism can be undone by reverting to a previous version of each page where required.

You can also search The Wayback Machine for historic websites that no longer exist if you have their URL

pgk

Once you have built p a good number of editors but before it ets big enough for spammers to notice you can introduce protected and semi-protected pages so ony admins or established editors can change them. this works for most wkis.

Good luck

Neil

This has really blossomed in a short time, my thanks to everyone who has contributed.

A quick recap; we now have around 60 locomotives of various types listed, some are fairly small entries, others very detailed, but all very welcome and interesting. Some people have added one or two things, others have made it their mission to research and add very detailed and interesting articles; I've lost quite a bit of time just reading up! I've fallen in love with Galatea in the process!

Many thanks to those who have been so instrumental in helping, and if you have information you would like to add about locomotives you are familiar with (did you build one and spot drawing errors? please let us know!) you would be very welcome.

Thanks to ME magazine for letting me post about the website on their forum.