The best beginners description for firing and driving that I have read is in
LBSC`s TICH book. If you can get it, this book is the bible for beginners.
It describes building a 3 1/2" gauge 0-4-0t and goes down to such detail as
you just cant fail to build your own loco. In the back of the book is the
how to get it running section.
Firing and driving is easy once you know what you are doing and have got
some practice in, same as everything else in life. If you can get a house
fire going and keep it going, you know the principle, now reduce the size of
the fire to about 2" x 2"!
Think about driving a car, you can be doing about 6 things at once if you
are braking, changing gear, steering around a corner at the same time. When
driving a live steamer, you have to; keep your balance, look where you are
going, maintain speed, maintain fire, maintain water level, maintain
pressure, think what you are going to do next, etc.
You will need, a blower (suction fan that sits on the chimney), paraffin
soaked charcoal, coal (either welsh steam or anthracite peas), and matches.
Before starting, oil everything that moves, lightly. You don't want oil on
the wheel treads.
Make sure boiler is 2/3 full in water gauge, put a few bits of charcoal in
firebox, and light it. Put blower on chimney and start it to pull air
through fire and boiler tubes. Put more charcoal onto the fire. Keep adding
more charcoal until pressure is showing on pressure gauge. Start putting
coal on fire and when pressure is about 30psi, turn on locos own steam
blower and remove aux blower from chimney. Keep adding coal to maintain
fire, and pump in water to maintain boiler level until the safety valve is
blowing. Hopefully you will now have a fire up to the level of the firehole
door, 3/4 ish of water and full pressure. Typical start up time from cold is
5-10 mins
On the run it will be trial and error at to the setting for the water feed
and how much coal to put on and how often. I ride behind my locos on a
trolley, but I believe G3 is like a trainset (excuse the association!), so I
drive like this;
Start off, open water bypass about 1/2. If water goes down, close bypass, if
water goes up, open bypass. Putting water in cools the boiler so pressure
goes down, so I plan ahead and put more coal on fire to prevent this
happening. If you aim to keep the fire constant and same for the water
level, the pressure will remain fairly constant, and you keep going round.
If anything goes down, you stop. Its as simple as that! Well, that is
slightly over simplified.
In 2 1/2" you will be fighting all the way, normally you will not stop
firing, and will be constantly opening and closing the bypass, pressure will
be up and down all the time, and so will your speed. Bloody good fun though!
Burn fingers, cinders in the hair, great! Just give it a go, you cant get it
wrong really.
Simon
----- Original Message -----
From: paul10992 <no_reply@...>
To: <halfinchlivesteamforum@...>
Sent: Tuesday, April 16, 2002 11:51 PM
Subject: [Half inch live steam forum] detailing
> One of my locos is coal fired. Great stuff but I
> have never coal fired before. Is there a tutorial or reference manual
> that could be recommended to get me started? I enjoy reading all the
> correspondance but I especially like the photos; wish there were
> more. Can't wait to get my feet wet. sincerely Paul