This is the craziest thing I have ever seen. It looks like two guys scavenged a scrap yard for pieces and constructed a facsimile of a tank engine, that actually steams.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WcjRxZ0ThyY

The video title indicates that it runs on 600 mm track, that's about 2 feet (i.e. Maine or Welsh narrow gauge). It certainly looks like an FRA inspector's worst nightmare. Rowland Emmet's "Far Tottering and Oyster Creek" comes to mind; it makes the Fiddletown and Copperopolis look like the Santa Fe. In the world of large-scale model railroading, we used to have Always Whimsical and Not Usually to Scale (that's right, A.W.N.U.T.S.) . The language in the title and some of the comments would appear to be from somewhere in or near what was the Austro-Hungarian Empire a hundred years and two wars ago. I'd say it's real and certainly not a recreation of anything else in the known universe.

A large scale CliShay with a horizontal boiler.

Probably some of Jason's cousins in the Old Country.

dave

The YouTube poster of this video says that he is from the Czech Repulbic.

The title "Parní lokomotiva vlastní výroby rozchod 600mm" computer translates to "Steam locomotive own production gauge 600 mm"

I'd pay good money to see what happened if a squad of FRA inspectors descended on THAT operation.

There's another video

OMG!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GFfN2U6aFsg

Did anyone else notice the "free range" chicken in the background of the second video? Definitely gives the impression of being far from Prague or any other large city. It certainly points up the ubiquity of today's low-cost video technology and the wonder of the Internet.

"Why did the chicken cross the road?"
"To get away from that weird home-brew steam engine as fast as possible."

But one could say, "When you gotta steam, you gotta steam." It also reminds me of stories about home-made amplifier setups used by impoverished musicians who were bound and determined to get that American Rock 'n' Roll sound. "Ja, I make thees amp from old Russian tank radio....."

Steam on!

There are good looking roaming chickens in Fair Oaks CA. Pretty odd and interesting.
and off topic. sorry.