[cjakeman]

I've been struck by the poor instruments available to loco drivers in the UK and what a late date was reached before clocks, lights and even a speedometer arrived on the footplate.

With poor instruments, I was thinking how difficult it must have been to keep a steam loco going when the demand for steam varies so much with gradient and timetabled stops. Of course, experts don't welcome help but I've been wondering what the best way of presenting the state of the engine might be.

So here is an idea for a monitor that shows the state of the firebox (in orange) and the state of the boiler (in blue).

We are monitoring the energy in the fire and in the steam. In the first slide we see a state of balance as the loco travels. The energy of the steam leaving the boiler is matched by the energy boiling the water. Similarly, the fire is in balance with fresh fuel replacing the heat lost to boil the water.

The second slide shows the loco suddenly working harder as it travels up a gradient and the blue indicator leaves a trail as it falls below the line of balance where energy out = energy in.

The third slide shows the result of the driver/engineer increasing the fire (turning on the blower?) and the restoring effect on the steam.



What do you think?

[markus_GE]

I´m not an expert on british steam, yet I think it a great idea - at least to those who on the one Hand like steam, but on the other like RUNNING diesels better xD

Just one Logical question: Wouldn´t it be easier to read if the diagram just showed Boiler psi / hPa versus cylinder psi / hPa? Just as the usual arragement of gauges on american Steamers does? I personally, with my just, but hough a Little of Steamer experience, would be able to read more out of such an Arrangement...

Cheers, Markus

[Lindsayts]

cjakeman, on 01 June 2013 - 01:24 PM, said:

I've been struck by the poor instruments available to loco drivers in the UK and what a late date was reached before clocks, lights and even a speedometer arrived on the footplate.

With poor instruments, I was thinking how difficult it must have been to keep a steam loco going when the demand for steam varies so much with gradient and timetabled stops. Of course, experts don't welcome help but I've been wondering what the best way of presenting the state of the engine might be.

What do you think?

One must remember that good crews of steam loco's were in fact __VERY___skilled people. In a real steamer one is very much in touch with the machine, you can clearly feel and hear the performance and also so see things like fire behavior so not a lot of instrumentation was required.

There is little more exhilerating than being in a steamer under power, a couple of competeing items would be, on a sail boat under a good wind, flying a small aircraft and riding a motorcycle fast on a nicely banked winding road.

The past was a different time than now, the world relied on simple tools used with great skill. A large percentage of the modern world simply does not wish to make this effort.

Lindsay

[Jonatan]

Like Lindsay said, the firing of an engine is not done by instrumentation but by the feel and signs the machine is giving you, and the skill to read these signs. It takes many years to master but experienced engine crews can make out the needs of the engine by sound and color of the smoke alone. Some of these men had more understanding for their engine than they did for their wives!

As a trainee fireman I have much to learn, but I can manage firing and running engines in MSTS with ease... the opposite is to be said for the real deal!!!!

[Genma Saotome]

cjakeman, on 01 June 2013 - 01:24 PM, said:

What do you think?

For myself, I simply pay attention to boiler pressure. If it's dropping I know what's going on... if it is rising I know what is going on. If, OTOH you think a graphic of some kind would be more useful than pressure data alone than use color to convey more information: Say a clear Green (RGB 0/255/0) represents 90.0001% to 100% of max boiler pressure. A slightly yellow green (RGB 128/255/0) for 80.0001 to 90%, Yellow for the 10% below that, and red for anything less. Put that color on an arrow or an upper vs. lower dot to indicate the current direction of the pressure change. Something very small can be completely informative.

It's been some time since I used it but there is (was) a very detailed performance log that can be created by the sim. I used the data in excel to graph fps over time with a second line for number of objects being processed. Anyway, I've always been of the opinion that being able to log more than sim performance could be useful to content creators; there's lots of data from the locomotives that could be logged, location too. Just something to consider....

[cjakeman]

Genma Saotome, on 01 June 2013 - 06:09 PM, said:

Something very small can be completely informative.

Yes, "small is beautiful" and I'm a fan of Tufte's sparklines which shows this off very well.

I wonder if anyone will comment on the importance (or not) of managing the fire as well as the boiler? We have two dynamic systems here linked by a time delay which is probably why driving steam is harder than driving modern traction.

Don't you have to build up the fire right now because the route will make an extra demand for steam in a few minutes time? And at the end of the route, don't you cease firing early leaving just enough steam to reach your destination?

Seems as tricky as Atari's Lunar Lander game, so I tip my hat to all the old-timers !

[copperpen]

Driver and fireman would normally work as a team, both knowing where they were on the road and knowing what demands were going to be put on the engine. To my mind, one person should be doing one job. The ability in MSTS to turn on the auto fireman is fine, but it should then turn on an auto driver, because apart from very small engines they always carried a two man crew. For OR I would like to see the facility to do that, driver only, fireman only or both for those that want it. Boiler management was after all the responsibility of the fireman, management of the train was the responsibility of the driver.

[Lindsayts]

A couple of points relating to some of the above posts....

Monitoring steam pressure,
One of the major reasons I have done high res cabs was to see the gauges properly, In all the cabs I have done one has no difficulty at all in reading speed to an accuracy of less than 1 mph and pressures less than 1 psi.

Firing a loco,

One cannot drive and fire a loco at the same time either in real life or in the sim, although it has been done in real life. Usually in an a real backwoods area where there was no danger of any managment showing up.
In current victorian railways driver instructions one of the first is "a driver cannot let anything distract him/her" (there's one female driver in Victoria), Firing a loco while driving either in real life or the sim is a definite distraction.

lindsay

[midneguy]

cjakeman, on 02 June 2013 - 06:10 AM, said:

I wonder if anyone will comment on the importance (or not) of managing the fire as well as the boiler? We have two dynamic systems here linked by a time delay which is probably why driving steam is harder than driving modern traction.

Don't you have to build up the fire right now because the route will make an extra demand for steam in a few minutes time? And at the end of the route, don't you cease firing early leaving just enough steam to reach your destination?

I can share a few observations about this, though they are based off of running a steam tractor, the behaviors will be very similar :) Since we fire with coal my observations will be based on coal being used as fuel...

Management of the fire with coal is indeed very critical and nothing can substitute for practice and experience. In a nutshell, you always have to be thinking several minutes in advance for what you'll be doing since coal fires don't respond instantly. If you anticipate that your steam demand will be going up (increased speed or load in the near future) that's the time to start adding or increasing the rate of coal added to the fire so it will have a chance to get lit and burning before the increased load occurs. The opposite is true when you anticipate a lighter load or slower speed in the near future - decrease the rate of adding coal or stop adding giving a chance for the mass of the fire to decrease before the lighter load arrives. Management of the dampers figures into all of this too, as you can use them as a kind of regulator for the fire. With increasing loads coming in the future, open the dampers up the needed amount to give the fire more air. If a reduction in load or stop is anticipated, closing the dampers in advance will help the fire to begin to cool down a bit so you don't have a pressure spike when the steam demand drops, or stops.

Then add to that water management... Of course the golden rule that can't be violated is to let the water get too low in the boiler. Likewise too much is a problem that can cause carryover into the cylinders (potentially damaging the cylinders or running gear) and making the engine hard to fire. So there's always a balancing act going on. Ideally if everything is working at a steady state you can adjust the addition of water to match the rate of consumption and fire according to demand. Or you can have a balancing act between when you add water and when you add fuel. My experience on the steam tractor is that it usually works pretty well to have a sort of rhythm... When the stack becomes clear loss of boiler pressure is right around the corner, so add coal. At this time water isn't being added because it has a chilling effect on the boiler. Of course the degree to which this varies depends on whether you're adding water with an injector which heats the water to some extent, or with a pump and feedwater heater. When the fresh fuel takes off pressure will start to tend to climb - then you can freely add water to the boiler and still maintain pressure. Then repeat the cycle, always trying to avoid a situation where you need to add water and add fuel at the same time, both of which have an initial chilling effect and possible drop in pressure.

Beyond all that, just managing the fire bed is an art... The coal never burns completely even over the entire grate surface. Maybe the front half of the firebox consumes more than the rear on average, or perhaps the sides consume more than the middle or front corners, etc. In general the key is to keep the fire evenly spread in spite of the varying burn rates across the total area. The main thing to avoid is letting an area get too thin so that cold air is able to make it through the firebed - this can drop your pressure in a hurry if a thin spot develops.

It really is an immersive experience, always trying to anticipate the future, balancing water vs. fuel needs at any given moment, listening to the sound of the engine and how hard it's working, observing the color of the smoke as an indication of whether the fire is "rich" or "lean", and knowing not only how much coal to add to the fire but just as importantly where to add it. ;)

This is why I've never been able to get into the virtual firing of steamers in the sim... no sim will ever be able to truly replicate all of this. But I do agree with copperpen that it would be nice to be able to operate in the sim in either "engineer" or "fireman" modes, rather than having to try to do both at once which isn't prototypical. As for any kind of aids to assist in managing the boiler I think there's really only 3 needed as long as the physics of the engine are right - color of the smoke, pressure gauge, and water glass :)