HOW DO I PROPERLY FIRE A STEAM LOCOMOTIVE?Steam Boiler Tutorial
By David Etheridge
Firing and driving a steam locomotive can take years of experience to become proficient. This isn't helped by every driver / fireman having their own techniques. This FAQ is designed to help those who would like to learn more about real world procedures and methods and how they can be applied to MSTS. This tutorial is based around the Flying Scotsman but equally applies to the 380 or most steam locomotives.Firing A Steam Locomotive
MSTS doesn't allow you to start from a cold engine but I have included the procedures for it here for completeness. On a large Express locomotive the locomotive would be lit up the previous day with a warming fire. The long process of getting a locomotive to working pressure starts 8 - 10 hours prior to the locomotive being needed. In the days of steam on the mainline the only time an engine would be completely disposed of was when it was due for overhaul or boiler washouts. The whole process starts by cleaning the grate of clinker and ash, emptying ash pans and generally checking the locomotive for leaks and damage. A bed of coal is then laid one the grate (the positioning of which varies from middle of the grate to the back under the door). A layer of wood is then placed on top of this then a small amount of coal on top of that mixed with paraffin soaked rags or old cleaning rags. This is then lit and once the fireman is sure the fire is going he can retire for a brew whilst the warming fire gets going. Gradually over the next 8 to 10 hours the fire is slowly built up, slowly being the operative word. Bring a loco up to pressure too quick and you can almost halve its boiler's working life due to stresses placed on the boiler as it suddenly heats up. Right, we have a loco in steam... now what... MSTS isn't very accurate firing wise, in the same way a golfer would say that a golf game isn't accurate. 75% of a fireman's skill is being able to watch the fire, fire in the correct places on the grate. This cannot be achieved with MSTS as it's a case of firing rate and no visual clues to the state of the fire or if its clinkering (an easy sign is a light blue flame, similar to that of a gas ring which is a sign of clinker). Route learning is a must, study the route profile, drive the route a couple of times to get visual clues to where the gradient changes (am I the only one who can't read the trackside signs?). Build the fire up well just before an uphill grade but cut the firing back before the summit if the driver (you) will close the regular or notch right back on the downgrade. Increase coal shovelling rate: R Decrease coal shovelling rate: Shift + R When standing in a station building a fire you will need to use the blower to increase draft through the fire bed which achieves three things: a) better steaming, b) less black smoke and most importantly c) keeping your fire hot. On a stop/start run keeping the fire hot is essential to steaming. 'What?' I hear you say that fire is roasting... to us it is but a drop of just 10 to 20 degrees C will see your steaming rate decrease rapidly and your pressure drop. This is usually worsened by an inexperienced fireman adding more coal which cools the fire even more. Do this too much and you will have a nice layer of clinker to clean out at the end of the day! Blower open: N Blower closed: Shift + N Now for your water... this is crucial. No matter how many steam railways you go to you will always hear this phrase... 'You can run out of steam, you can run out of coal, you can let the fire die but NEVER run out of water. A boiler is made of three primary parts: a) the barrel (that long bit between the cab and smokebox), the outer firebox (the bigger bit you see next to the cab) and c) the inner firebox. The inner firebox is suspended in the outer box by stays, at the top these will be crown stays (girderish like bits of metal) and all around the box will be normal bar stays the quantity of which is several hundred. The inner firebox is delicate, it is only the cooling effect of the water in the boiler that stops it melting or warping. Remove that water (exposing the top of the inner firebox - or crown) and the inner firebox will collapse due to boiler pressure and the heat of the fire. Big bang time. I notice with the Auto fireman on MSTS that he keeps the boiler at about 90%. For a mainline run with few severe gradient changes this is fine. With water in the boiler remember that when you go uphill the water will come to the back of the boiler and give you a false reading in the gauge glasses. As soon as the gradient levels out watch that water disappear. Go downhill and the water goes to the front of the boiler and could potentially expose the top of the inner firebox. A good fireman never works in real time, he is always thinking 10 - 15 minutes ahead and looking after the boiler and fire accordingly. As long as the boiler is 50 - 75% full you'll be all right (gradients permitting). Water has one adverse effect... it will cool the temperature of your boiler, not by much but enough to lose you some pressure now and again (especially when stationary). Try to use the injectors whilst on the run. When coming to a station let the water level drop a little. This extra space will allow you to manage the pressure without using the boiler safety valves (those noisy things on top of the boiler that throw up huge jets of steam). Scotsman is fitted with two injectors, a live steam injector and an exhaust steam injector. They both do the same job but the exhaust injector takes steam from the blast pipe or Ejector exhaust to provide the steam. This is efficient on the run as it uses only waste steam not steam from the boiler. One other vital piece of information. If you see your water level get above 100% then even if you are doing 80 mph down the S&C GET YOUR DRAIN COCKS OPEN. If you change grade and go uphill there is a chance you will carry water over from the boiler into the main steam pipe, through the super-heater header and into the cylinders. Water not being as compressible as steam and you risk blowing a cover off a cylinder. I've not managed to do this on MSTS yet but it does happen in real life! You also risk bending motion rods as the piston stops against the water whilst the rods are still going round in a blur. Expensive mistakes! The real life technique for an injector is to fully open the water valve, THEN the steam valve then adjust the water valve until no overflow is seen coming from the injector body. You will hear the injector tone change dramatically as well when it starts feeding (again not modelled in MSTS). In MSTS You have a simple on off steam valve and a slightly adjustable water valve but no visual clues to whether the injector has 'picked up'. Water valve 1 open: K Water valve 1 close: Shift + K Injector 1 steam open / close: I Water valve 2 open: L Water valve 2 close: Shift + L Injector 2 steam open / close: O Steam heating isn't really modelled in MSTS but if you are using it for realism value then remember that the steam is coming direct from the boiler and thus you will need a slightly bigger fire than usual to compensate. The dampers are used to control primary air to the firebed. On a loco like Scotsman there are two dampers (one at the front and one at the back of the ashpan). There are two views on damper usage... (neither apply to MSTS as you only have one damper), do you a) open the damper of the direction of travel (i.e. front damper when going forward) and ram air into the fire bed or b) use the opposite damper and let the draft of the exhaust draw air in? Personally I use the opposite rule, ram too much air into the firebed and you risk cooling the fire bed. In MSTS keep your dampers fairly open and use them in a station to control the steam generation (but watch you don't cool the fire too much). The firebox doors seem quite simple don't they... you open them, throw on coal and close them... wrong. They provide secondary air to the fire. I hear you all cry 'but we already have primary air under and through the grate, why do we need secondary?' I shall explain. When coal starts to burn it releases a lot of vapours and gases. These gases sit above the firebed and at the top of the inner firebox and 9/10 go straight through to the chimney. No damage there BUT you are loosing a lot of precious energy. Using secondary air lets the top of the firebed burn more efficiently and burns off these gases. It also helps to reduce the formation of clinker if you have bad coal. Open firebox door: F Close firebox door: Shift + F That about concludes our lesson on firing. As you have seen you couldn't fire with MSTS then go and fire a real steam engine. I've been a fireman for over two years now on a preserved line and every day on the footplate is a different challenge... different coal, different loco, different weather conditions (a cold day makes steaming harder) and different loads behind the train. I'm lucky in that I now know the route like the back of my hand and know the grades and roughly how the drivers will drive the engine. Its also only 25 mph not 80 mph! I hope this has helped and / or been informative and any questions should be directed to dave@detheridge.co.uk Dave Etheridge HOW DO I PROPERLY DRIVE A STEAM LOCOMOTIVE?Steam Engineer Tutorial
By David Etheridge
This is based on driving a real steam locomotive but due to MSTS's quite accurate depiction of driving it should apply just as well. OK so now we have a good fire going from my last tutorial ;-) What next? Simple, let's go and drive the thing! Driving a steam locomotive is all about meeting a timetable in a safe manner whilst also trying to minimize the load on the fireman. Small changes to ejector settings and cut back (reverser) can save not only the fireman's back but also several tons of coal. A quick introduction to using the reverser and what it actually does. In layman's terms the reverser is the equivalent of a car gear box (in very basic terms). When you start off you want brute force to get the thing moving. Once you're moving you want to start notching back (going up the gears). Cut off (the percentage value you see on the reverser) relates to the percentage of travel of the piston where steam is admitted to the cylinder. With me so far? Good... 75% will give a blast of steam for 75% of the piston's travel, i.e. brute force but a lot of wasted steam. The beauty of steam is that it will expand to several hundred times its own volume. Once we have the engine running we can start to cut back how long we admit steam to the cylinder and start using the expansion capabilities of the steam. By the time you're doing 80 mph you should have the reverser right back to 10 - 15% or even less with full regulator. Once you have the regulator open regulate your speed with the reverser not the regulator. If you start an uphill section simply increase the reverser to 25% or so, going downhill cut the reverser right back as far as 5%. Starting off. Right. The passengers are aboard, the fire is good and we've got the tip (signal). Firstly make sure you have your cylinder cocks open; these will allow condensed steam (i.e. water) to escape from the cylinder. If the water is allowed to stay you risk blowing your cylinder covers off the cylinder blocks as water isn't compressible. It might sound daft but believe me it happens, even on the mainline. Put your reverser in full forward (I'll assume for now we're running smokebox first), set the brakes to release and wait for the vacuum to increase to 21 inches then set the brake applicator to running. Now is a good time to check the small ejector is on; in the cab view the little lever to the left of the brake handle should be vertical. This is the small ejector which helps to maintain vacuum (badly on MSTS I'm afraid). Open the regulator to about 5 - 10% and let the engine slowly build itself up, we don't want coffee in the passengers laps now do we! Let the speed increase to about 5 mph then shut the cylinder cocks (C key). At the same time take the reverser back to 70%. Once you are clear of any sidings or station start to increase the regulator settings (not to 100% straight away or you will be wheel spinning all the way!). As you proceed along the line and increase speed drop the reverser down about 5% for every 5 - 10 mph. You should also see the steam usage figure drop if you have the HUD view up (F5). OK, now we're moving but how do we stop. This is something that comes with experience and depends on the load and the station (gradients, etc.). You want to be entering the station limits (end of the platform ramps) at about 15 mph and slowly coast to a stop with minimal brake application. Watch your station info box and track view for distance to the station and start braking in plenty of time. If you think you'll stop short put the reverser in full forward, release the brakes fully and give a quick burst with the regulator. You can stop yourself from stopping short but if you are going to overrun it will take a serious brake application, lots of annoyed passengers and lots of passenger comfort warnings on your Activity report. You should not need to drop vacuum below 12 inches during the braking. You should also (not modelled in MSTS) stop with vacuum above 10 inches and preferably on a rising vacuum, i.e. the train is coasting to a stop with the brakes coming off not on. On a real train if you stop with vacuum below 10 inches you risk locking your brakes on. This will get you one very annoyed guard who will have to pull the strings on every vacuum brake cylinder along the whole train (2 per coach x 10 coaches = 20 strings to pull for anything up to 30 seconds each) to release the brakes. When un-coupling (again this isn't modelled in MSTS) you should put the brake applicator in full apply (100%) and shut off the small ejector (J key). This will destroy the vacuum in the train pipe and apply all the coach brakes. It also means the fireman or cleaner can uncouple the vacuum hoses from the loco to the coaches. Don't forget to turn the small ejector on and release the brakes before trying to move the engine! Driving un-fitted stock is a lot harder as you have the buff forces when braking and you will also need to be a lot lighter when accelerating to let the slack in the couplings pull out. There are many tutorials on this already for the Dash 9's etc. so read those FAQ's and apply the same principles with the steamers. Hope this helps. Dave Etheridge
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