“In the 1990s I was keenly watching a new build occurring in the UK and I thought that, given enough time and the equipment to do it, I too could build from scratch.<\/p>\n
“This is the result, 23 years later.”<\/p>\n
Mr Smythe today watched his locomotive get craned onto a truck before heading off on a 350-kilometre journey to Quorn at the edge of the Flinders Ranges.<\/p>\n
![\"Close](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/869ad4bf79f4ee314158b3031edbd816.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n
Glen Smythe’s locomotive is build from a 1982 design. (ABC Radio Adelaide: Bobby Macumber)<\/p>\n
This is the base location for the heritage Pichi Richi Railway, which travels between Quorn and Port Augusta.<\/p>\n
Mr Smythe’s self-funded locomotive will join the fleet to haul passengers along the much-loved route \u2014 when complete.<\/p>\n
“This piece is 100 per cent finished, but I still have a lot of work involved in building the boiler, and that’s why it has to leave today so that I have my workshop space to do that,” he said.<\/p>\n
“Its life will be running heritage trains on the Pichi Richi Railway and be fully operational.”<\/p>\n
A ‘psychological challenge’<\/p>\n
Mr Smyth said he originally set out on the project as an “engineering challenge” for himself.<\/p>\n
![\"Steam](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/1c908c26d78d7b624c7d1c5458f41fab.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n
Glen Smythe’s locomotive will eventually join the Pichi Richi Railway fleet in South Australia. (Supplied: Kane Stevenson, Kane’s Trains)<\/p>\n
He said it turned out to be more of a “psychological challenge than anything to keep going over such a long period of time”.<\/p>\n
“I used to wake up in the middle of the night, bold upright in a cold sweat, wondering what I’d taken on \u2014 a lifetime of pressure,” Mr Smyth said.<\/p>\n
“But I don’t do that anymore, so I think I’m over the hill.”\u00a0<\/p>\n
Watching his locomotive head off Thursday morning, Mr Smyth said he felt a little bit nervous.<\/p>\n
“It’s a little bit sad that it’s leaving its birthplace,” he said.<\/p>\n
“The shed will feel a bit empty, but it’s all part of the journey, and the next phase begins.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Most shed-faring folk can spend hours tinkering away at passion projects, but one Adelaide Hills man has just…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":445563,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[231100,43,231101,44,231102,128160,41,39,42,40],"class_list":["post-445562","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-glen-smythe","tag-headlines","tag-locomotive","tag-news","tag-pichi-richi-railway","tag-railway","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/445562","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=445562"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/445562\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/445563"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=445562"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=445562"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=445562"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}