The Cricket live steam engine is available exclusively through Purkeys Toy Trains. The first few units started shipping December 2007 and sold for $575. Engines will be made in either red, blue, green, or black. Call to reserve yours today! The production will be only 45 units.

(UPDATE... July. 2008, #22 has just shipped.)

(UPDATE... March. 2008, The folks at Westminster Locomotive Works have been working on #16 to 25 Crickets over the Winter, #20 has just shipped with the rest to follow soon.)

(UPDATE... Oct. 2007, Westminster Locomotive Works has decided to do a second run of 50 of the Cricket Live Steam Loco. The price is $695, if you call to reserve one now, price is subject to change for units not reserved. The first units will start shipping Fall of 2008.)

Call 410-549-6061 to reserve yours today!

(UPDATE... Jan. 2007, the first run of the Cricket is now sold out.)
(UPDATE... Nov. 2007, The first 13 units have shipped. Most of the balance are being powder coated, and we expect the final assembly & delivery of all 45 units to be completed by the end of Summer, 2008)

Improvements to the new Cricket are an opening front smoke box for easier lighting up and movement of the safety valve and dome changes to get a little more boiler volume. We had to redesign and build a new burner assembly since many original vendors went out of business. It has taken us about 3 years working together with Mike O'Rourke (of Berkley Locomotive Works fame) the designer of the Cricket and tried to change a couple of things we felt would improve an already good little starter. We at Westminster Locomotive Works, LLC hope you will be pleased with the improvements.

What is it made of? How is it made?

     CRICKET is made from both traditional and some non traditional materials.  The body work is made from formed 20 and 24 gauge sheet steel. This has been powder coated for corrosion resistance and resistance to heat. Wheels are cold rolled steel, as are axles and crankshafts.  These have been sprayed with a rust inhibitor and/or clear lacquer spray.  This in no time will wear off, so keep an eye out for rust.  After each running session, wipe, brush, or spray all steel parts with a mix of oil and kerosene, light oil, such as 3 in 1, silicone spray or LPS3. 

     Boiler is all copper, brass & bronze and is silver soldered throughout. Also the pressure gauge and siphon nipple are silver soldered.  The gas tank, valve and spigot, have all been silver soldered.

     Lubricator, cylinder, valve block are all made of brass as are the connecting rods and eccentric rods and flycrank.  The piston valve and the piston are of teflon.  We chose this material because of its extremely low coefficient of friction and resistance to wear.  Theoretically, the valve and piston should, with proper lubrication, last indefinitely.  Unfortunately, Teflon also has a high co-efficient of thermal expansion, so that valve and piston must be machined to a very close tolerances so they will expand to a precise dimension to provide a steam tight seal and still slide easily to the bores.  If you try to test your CRICKET on air, it will not work very well as the cold Teflon does not provide an airtight seal.  The eccentric is made of brass.  With proper lubrication, it should last indefinitely.  All bearings are made of bronze.  The flywheels are made of brass, which has been turned and polished.

     The CRICKET motor has the characteristics of both a steam engine and an internal combustion engine.  It bears a lot of resemblance to a model airplane motor as it is single acting and has the drive rod, or piston rod, connected directly to the piston through a ball and socket joint.  We selected this system for a number of reasons, not the least of which were simplicity, ease of manufacture, and economy.  The gears are precision cut and all metal.  The gear ration is 1:5:79, which is more than adequate to give CRICKET sufficient power to pull loads far in excess of what one would expect from a locomotive of this size with only one cylinder.  The standard CRICKET will pull without effort 12 four wheeled LGB #4043 tipper wagons up a 1.33% grade ! Runtime is about 10 to 15 minutes. Boiler capicity is about 85 cc. Bore is 10.9mm, Stroke 9 mm.

     The CRICKET STEAM MOTOR is manufactured entirely in the United States and is, as far as we know, the only G Scale compatible live steamer being manufactured here. 

     The CRICKET is built to a scale of 15mm to the foot.  This is somewhat conjectural though, as no working drawings of the prototype exist (see next section) and the dimensions have been extrapolated from an advertising engraving showing the prototype.  It is visually compatible with G Scale (1:22:5) what we WLW, LLC, call G15" (1:20,15mm =1') and 16mm scale (1:19).  It may look a little odd with 1:24 scale equipment.

About the Prototype

     The CRICKET is a truly unique locomotive.  Like a shay, it is geared, which allows it to take steep grades in stride.  Its short wheel base permits it to operate on curves as tight as 12" radius in Gauge 1 and 10" radius gauge in O.  Though it is admirably suited to logging, quarry, plantation or mine operations, it can handle the demands of street railway and branch line service equally well.  When we decided to produce an American Prototype miniature live steamer here in the United States, we looked around for something that could be made and sold at a reasonable price, would be a reliable performer, would be simple to operate and would be an interesting addition to any roads locomotive roster.  We also wanted to attract the Garden Railroader used to running electrically driven trains to the joys of live steam operation, without him/her feeling they had to mortgage the farm to do it. Reading John H. White Jr.s A Short History of American Locomotive Builders, we discovered the advertising line cut from the Byers Machine Co. illustrating the little engine upon which CRICKET is based.  According to White, four of these little locomotives had been completed by 1896.  Other than the fact that the Byers Company was once a large manufacturer of construction equipment in Ravenna, Ohio, nothing is known of the little engines other than what is shown in the engraving, which is the only known extant illustration.  At this writing we are seeking further information on the locomotive through the Portage County Historical Society in Ravenna and the Railway & Locomotive Historical Society.

     We arrived at the design of CRICKET by extrapolating from the engraving.  We surmised that the locomotive was driven by a single vehicle engine, a stock engine from the Byers catalog with a flywheel on the opposite side.  However, new information and reproduction of Byers catalog company sheets lead us to believe that the locomotive could also have been built with two vertical engines, also stock items from the Byers inventory.  It would have been a simple matter to take a single or double stock engine, gear it to some wheels and put a At boiler on top of the whole affair, the result being the little engine shown in the engraving.  But what would the advantage of such a locomotive be, with all the Baldwins, Porters, Hinkleys, Dixons and Glovers and other small locomotives running through the industrial sites, forests, mines, plantation and quarries of the country?  One possibility is that the Byers engine was unique insofar as it may have had some sort of clutch arrangement so that the power drive could be disconnected from the wheels, rendering it a source of stationary power.  Once work was done at a particular job site, the wheels could be re-engaged and the locomotive chug away to the next job site and once again set up as a source of stationary power.  We are almost certain that the engine would have had a flywheel on the opposite side, though none is shown in the engraving, as both double and single engines in the Byers catalog are shown with flywheels, and if the above speculation is correct, it would be needed as a power take-off for the belt drive.

     The closeness of the wheels, however, remains a mystery.  The Byers Company effectively used chains to transmit power from engine to axles; the closeness of the wheels shown in the engraving would indicate that the wheels were driven through spur gears, as were the Gypsy engines of the Pacific Coast logging industry.  The short wheel base would have certainly allowed the locomotive to negotiate very tight curves.  However, it would have made it highly unstable over very rough track, and springing of the wheels would have had to be very limited in order for the gears to remain in mesh.

     In spite of the desirability of the locomotive as a movable power source, the design does not seem to have caught on with potential buyers, and probably no more than the four engines cited by White were ever built.  Additionally, it could not have been a seller for the Byers company as it was never shown or listed in any of their catalogs.  Since new information about the prototype of this engine has recently come to light, keep in mind that our design will be more true to the original model as built by Berkley Locomotive Works, and does not strive to be a model of the original engine.

     We hope you enjoy your CRICKET STEAM MOTOR and that it will give you and yours many years of fun and...

      HAPPY STEAMING!!!