Part I

Hello All,

I welcome you to reading this as it is the first part of the Microsoft Steam Series as posted on Trainartisan. I trust that you are all here to learn more about Steam Locomotives, how they operate, how to run all the fine steam locomotives out there like the Empire State Express, also how to develop your own steam engines, so lets not waste time and get started.

Let me tell you a little about myself and my reasons for writing this, My name is Chris Lee and I live in Long Island close to the city.

Why I am doing this: Well, there are many reasons that I have created this series of articles, one was that a loco creator asked me if I wanted to help him learn to run Steam Loco’s in the game, I created a list which had many subscribers but I wanted to share with the people who did not subscribe. Let me tell you that once you have tried firing the Loco’s and running the engines by yourself without the auto-fireman you will never go back, its a very fulfilling experience. Another reason is that with all the great steam locus that are coming out now or are currently in development (I have done most of the ENG files) it would be a shame to see them go to waste with people just using the Auto-fireman. Yet another reason is that most steam developers that I work with don't know anything about running the steam engines, they always ask me what to do so I figured I would put it all in one place for them, with their great art I figured that they should know how to use it properly.

My Experiences with steam outside the game: The main knowledge that I have about steam came to me through experience, I spent the last 2 summers working at Steamtown U.S.A. The people there were really great in teaching me all about the Steam loco and what does what, it was a very rewarding experience.

My Experiences with Steam in the game: As I have already said I have done most of the steam ENG files that have come out or are very close to being released. I did the ENG file for the Empire State Express Hudson featured on this site. In fact if you have downloaded a new loco for your game I have probably had something to do with it. I wrote the ENG file for the Jason Dilworth’s SD40-2 as well as the Jago's sd50. I have done sound editing and have worked on various other diesel locos. But as for the steam, it’s a long list. Basically all the steam locos that you run now (with the exception of the logging locos) I have done the ENG files for. I did John Fowlis's great pacific and Selkirk, I have also done Rogers American which is close to being released, also Cliffs consolidation another soon to be released work, I am going to work on Roger’s Challenger. My current steam project, which I am doing the ENG for, is 4-8-4 northern I won’t say which engine because the best comes to those who wait. As you can see, I am very experienced with the steam locos in the game and that's why I wanted to write this series.

It is not easy: I am not going to kid you right now, running the steam loco in TS is not the easiest thing in the world, it takes some practice to do it right. And if you think running a steamer in TS is hard, wait to you see what the guys in the real world do, that’s really a challenge. Hopefully by the end of this series you all will have a greater knowledge of steam in the game and steam in general because there are not that many mainline steam engines running right now and there are only going to be less as the years draw on so respect it while it is still there, the Steam locomotive in the American society and around the world is the dying bread. Most who live near the tracks now a days think that the diesels are to loud and to dirty, they have never seen a steam loco run. There is nothing more thrilling than seeing a large steam loco sprinting across the country at 60 per, the thing that most people for get is that Steam locos were a lot louder than diesels, they were a lot dirtier and the Iron horse built the USA.

So, now that all that stuff is out of the way, lets begin with how a Steam Locomotive runs in real life and how this is modeled in Train Simulator.

Lets start with how the Iron horse works in real life.

As most of you know there are two parts to the full steam locomotive, the engine and the tender. The Engine is the part that makes the steam and changes it into actual force to propel the locomotive down the track. The tender of course is hooked up to the locomotive by a strong draw bar and hoses that go between the two in order to supply water and in some cases Oil. With out the tender you are not going anywhere because you would not have any water to pump into the engine and you would not have any coal/oil in order to heat the water. This is not modeled well in Train Simulator because you are able to detach the tender from the loco which would never be done unless it broke apart (this occurred very little) or the locomotive was in the shop for an inspection or the dreaded 5 year The part that is modeled well in Train Simulator is the fact that once you detach the loco from the tender, the water and coal numbers drop to zero right away, this is surprising since the amount of coal and water that the tender can contain is in the steam locos ENG file, Microsoft finally did something right. You would never want to detach the tender from the loco because you would have no coal or water, but you can do it for fun.

Now the whole purpose of the Coal is to heat the water in order to change it from the Liquid phase to the gas phase known as steam. This process occurs in the boiler for boiling the water. Directly under the boiler is what is called the firebox, this is the area that has the fire in it. Either coal or oil or wood can be used as a heating substance for the water, but now a days if you go out to see a live steam loco it will generally burn oil. This is done because the coal (there are many grades of coal that were used in the Firebox of steam locos) does not burn very cleanly (not meaning Clean Clean because all steam locos are dirty) meaning that it breaks down into many small parts, these parts called cinders would blow out of the smoke stack and wind up starting brush fires on the ground, in some cases it could burn down a house. The oil does not do this however and it is used a lot out west on the UP, SSW, SP and other roads who bought the newer Steamers (built after 1940). Wood was rarely used after the first steam locos such as the American.

Back to boiling the water, there are two things that you don't want to do and they are not have enough water in the boiler or not having a hot enough fire, both can lead to bad things. Not having both an large enough fire (one that doesn’t take up much space of the grate area) or having a cold fire (one that does not heat the water enough) can both be bad because the engine will run out of steam because there is not enough water being boiled. Probably the worst thing that you can do when running the Steamers is not have enough water in the boiler, having to much water in the boiler is also a problem but not as severe. When you have too much water in the boiler (in Train Simulator higher than 1.15) a process will occur called priming, this is when not all the water is boiled and the liquid water makes its way to the cylinders where it seizes and stop's the piston from moving back and forth essentially stopping the loco from running, this can be solved by opening the cylinder cocks on the loco which releases the water onto the ground. When starting or stopping the steam engine you should always open the cylinder cocks for the first few or last few rotations so the liquid water can be forced out and there is no problem. If any of you have heard of the NKP 759(currently at Steamtown) it had this problem. The 759 was the locomotive was used for high speed mainline fantrips in the late 70's by Ross Rowland but when Rowland was done with it the crew forgot to drain the water out of the cylinders and it was left overnight in the cold and you can guess what happened. The water froze to ice and it expanded and cracked the cylinders, this is one of the main reasons it hasn't been restored to Operating condition, it need about 200,000 dollars for new cylinders and other small work.

You should also have the cylinder cocks open when the engine is just sitting there. Like I said the worse thing that you can do is have to little water in the boiler (anything less than .5 in Train Simulator), when there is too little water there won't be enough water covering the crown sheet (a piece of metal separating the firebox and boiler), if there is not enough water covering the crown sheet, the fire will heat it up and the metal will then melt and the hot water from the boiler will drop onto the hot fire creating an immense amount of steam, the immense amount of steam will try to escape any way possible and if the firebox door is open like it usually is then the Steam will escape through and back into the cab and will severely burn if not kill the crew in the cab. It’s not a good situation and this is known as a boiler explosion. This is modeled in Train Simulator but it just ends the simulation with a line saying the Fusible Plugs have melted, the plugs would melt just before the water broke through the crown sheet so some steam would escape out and not into the cab, I bet some of you have gotten that message, you also have a nicely steamed engineer and fireman for dinner yummmmmmmmm.

If any of you have heard of the Gettysburg RR or Canadian Pacific 4-6-2 1278, this happened about 5-6 years ago. It was the classic situation about the fireman not knowing about it and the steam escaped back into the cab, If I recall correctly the fireman was killed, the engineer received 3rd degree burns and someone else in the cab was also hurt badly. The 1278 now works for the Ohio Central RR but it was not a good situation, boiler explosions used to be very common before 1900 but since then there have been safety devices such as the plugs to help stop the problem. In real life it is hard to gauge the water level in the boiler when going up and down grades (modeled well in Train Simulator, grades are to severe however), if you are going down grade the water will move to the front of the boiler exposing the rear of the crown sheet to the heat of the fire, it is opposite going upgrade, this is why you always need to keep the boiler with enough water (anywhere from .85 to 1.1 in Train Simulator should be fine). In real life you can check where the water level is by using either the Angle cocks or the sight-glass. The sight-glass is modeled in Train Simulator but the angle cocks are not. The angle cocks will always give you a correct reading because they release water from the boiler and show the correct locations; there are three angle cocks in the cab. In Train Simulator you really have to guess where the water level is when going up and down grade (you wouldn't have to do this in real life because of the angle cocks).

After the water is turned into the Steam it makes its way down to the cylinders (the big boxes on the left and right side of the locos). There is a value that lets the steam in, when it opens the steam goes in and pushes the piston out because the steam is expanding turning the wheels, then the piston comes back when the steam is cooled and the process repeats. The steam that has been used is then forced up the blast pipe and out through smokestack. This is modeling in Train Simulator by the valve gear on the loco (there are 2 main types) going back and forth. It is also modeling in the ENG file by cylinder stroke, cylinder diameter and cylinder volume. Steam from the loco can also be used for other things such as blowing the whistle, heating cars in the winter and brakes. All of these are modeled in Train Simulator but remember that Steam heating puts a tremendous strain on the boiler.

That’s it for Part I, Next week we will take a look at the Steam accessories and the Current American Steam locomotives out there with a review of each.

Thanks to George Elwood, Bob Rathke and Gary Overfield for their photos in this piece.

You can email Bob at bobrathke@home.com

Gary at mvrave@neo.rr.com

And George Elwood’s great site is http://www.dnaco.net/~gelwood/

Any questions or comments are welcomed.

Chris

Leesome1226@yahoo.com