Now after you have prepared your engine in order to pop-off with your train it is time to get ready to depart.
In order to do so you need to set up your engine for a brake test. First check out your boiler pressure and become familiar with checking the boiler pressure very time when you have shoveled coal onto the fire grate.
Something about firing
Firing requires a skilled fireman. firing is not just throwing some coal onto the fire grate but you need to fire the engine proper and very precise. When you take a look on a real engine you will notice the fire grate is sloped in an angle. This is not withour reason. the front part of the fire grate is lower than the back part of the fire grate. SO when you throw some coal on the fire bed , you need to throw coal just underneath the door. and the sides of the fire grate in the fire box. The middel of the fire grate must just be covered with a minimum of coal.
When you shovel, just shovel the coal at the sides of the fire grate and underneath the fire door.
The motion of the engine will spread out the coal on top of the fire grate itself. On a distance of 50 km / 35 mile you shovel 1000 kg of coal.
The common frequency of shoveling is about every two minutes 6 or 7 shovels of coals spread out over the coal bed accordingly. Another way to manage the coal is to check out the color of the smoke out of the chimney. You start shoveling coal when the coals has turned grey/white. The moment you start to shovel will give a black smoke out of the chimney as well.
Now in TS20xx it is not simulated properly, but by pressing [ F ] you open the fire door. By pressing [ R ] you start shoveling. TS20xx just notice the order to fire by pressing [ R ]. However uktrainsim has a program that contains a stand-alone for download and the program drives a steam locomotive. That program it is more specialized to it. It shows exactly where to shovel and throw coal in the fire box. Unfortunately it is not implemented into TS20xx and either MSTS.
Listen when you shovel. and count the amount of shovels you throw on the fire grate. As long as you have counted the amount of shoveling until 6 or 7 shovels then you cease shovel by pressing [ Shift ] - [ R ] and close the fire box door by pressing [ Shift ] - [ F ]
This is the way to keep up your fire in a proper way.
The use of water pumps and injectors
Injecting water is already explained to you and I will continue this subject later on. Now it is very important to do one thing at a time and it is very important to know not to shovel and inject water at the same time. It is also very important not to fire the engine when passing a tunnel in order to prevent a fire blow-back. Before you enter a tunnel just make sure you have ceased firing and open up the blower and dampers completely.
This is the proper way to inject and shovel and to create pressure in the boiler. Now you are ready to pop-off the moment the gauge shows 15,5 atm.
