SargNickFury wrote:Loving this locomotive! I do have some questions though as a more complex loco I think requires a more complex understanding.
1.) I can't seem to find the water sight gauge, I see where it should be in manuel but when I look I don't see it. Likely I am a victem of my lighting mod again making it hard to see. Screenshot?
It's a glass tube held in a sort of frame that also has three black valves going through it at slightly offset angles (those are the test valves that would be used if the glass sight valve got broken .., you'd open the valves one by one, starting at the top, and see which one let out water). It's just above the throttle, to the right of the gauges.
SargNickFury wrote:2.)Probably a noob question but as you don't have to warm or drain the steam chest of water in sim, what effect in the game does opening and closing the cylinder cocks have?? (beside graphics) When should I have it open and closed?
Well, there was a lot of hoo-haa when the 56xx came out, because of the ease with which the cylinder covers could be blown off if you weren't careful about draining the cylinders. So I decided to make them just a cosmetic feature, but with realistic timing and a fully animated mechanism. They don't actually have any effect other than to use up steam, but you can tell yourself off if you forget to open them after being stationary for a while
SargNickFury wrote:3.) The Manual says
"The pick-up injectors are scripted to simulate pick-up failure if they aren’t operated correctly –there’s more about that further on." But unless I am missing it I don't see more detail on that or just don't know what I am looking for.
"Pretend" I have never operated a steam train in real life before...
what is "pick-up failure"? (Outside of what goes on at bars) How does one operate the injectors correctly? If I have fireman on auto will he not inject the water as needed? Do I need to do something?
It's described in more detail on page 20, "How to operate the injectors in expert mode when firing manually".
Pick-up failure is when the injector fails to "suck" the water, coming up through the pipe from the tender, into the chamber where it's mixed with steam to heat it up and passed through a venturi to accelerate it and ram it down the pipe that goes to a clack valve near the front of the evaporator (the part of the boiler that holds the water that gets boiled and evaporated to make steam). If the operation is done in the wrong order, the water doesn't get sucked into the mixing chamber and instead it all flows straight back out through the overflow pipe.
SargNickFury wrote:4.) I have seen in various train sims people open up train break until pressure is at a certain setting and then putting it in running to stop further loss to pressure? I have never really understood what you're looking for here as far as pressure, and where you want it at, and I think maybe it differs on each train? How do you recommend it for this loco?
To apply the brakes, you move the handle to the right, into the "application" zone so that air is released from the train line through the "small hole" (if you go too far to the right, into the "emergency" part, the air is released through the "big hole" and comes out very quickly, triggering an emergency activation of the brakes). The brake pipe pressure (black hand) will fall, and when it is lower than the pressure in the auxiliary reservoirs (under each car), the car brakes are set (air from the auxiliary reservoirs goes into the brake cylinders, forcing the brake shoes against the wheels). The more the difference between the brake pipe pressure and the auxiliary reservoirs pressure (normally 90psi), the greater the brake cylinder pressure (the red hand). On the gauge, what you see is the black and red hands moving towards each other until they meet, at which point the black hand might continue to fall but the red hand will stay put.
What you need to do when applying the brakes is to think about how much force you want on the brakes. It's just like putting your foot on the brakes in a car ... gently or hard, but that's up to the driver (engineer) to judge depending on the conditions. Keep in mind though that the brake force doesn't rise very quickly, so you have to be prepared and anticipate when you need to brake.
To release the brakes, you move the lever left, into the release position, or into running if you want to release them slowly. The release position make the system pump air into the train line, raising the brake pipe pressure. When the brake pipe pressure is higher than the pressure in the auxiliary reservoirs, the triple valve in the car causes the air in the brake cylinders to be released, thus releasing the pressure on the brakes. It also, at the same time, diverts air from the train line into the auxiliary reservoirs to top them up again (when the brakes were set, the pressure in the auxiliary reservoirs will have gone down, because some of the air went into the brake cylinders).
After releasing the brakes, you put the lever into running so that air continues to be fed into the train line at a trickle rate, to prevent the train line pressure from dropping and accidentally applying the brakes again.
The Main Reservoir pressure starts at 120psi and drops when the brakes are released, because air is fed from the MR into the train line to release them. But when it gets down as far as 110psi, the compressor kicks in and pumps it back up to 120psi (you can hear this from in the cab).
The equalizing reservoir is under the cab and has several purposes, including reducing the effects of back pressure. It's a bit difficult to explain. Suffice it to say that what you see in the cab is that the equalizing reservoir pressure more or less follows the brake pipe pressure.
It gets more complicated if we get into the topic of "Peeing away your air". For that one, I strongly recommend the second tutorial video on YouTube.
SargNickFury wrote:5.) How realistic are some of these extra features say I am underway and I cut off the steam to the oil if lubricant is not added will this cause it to cease up? What are game effects?
The lubricator is another bit of eye candy. I could have made it actually cause the loco to seize up if not turned on, with catastrophic effects for the compressor, generator, valves, everything, but I had to draw the line somewhere. So you have to suspend disbelief and imagine that if you don't turn it on, you're doing something wrong. What I actually wanted to achieve with it was to have the controls move and look like they were doing something, hence the other bit of eye candy ... the oil droplets (this is accurate, I've seen a video of the oil droplets viewed through those sight windows).
SargNickFury wrote:6.) in general if I am running with automatic fireman what does he control besides adding more coal?
He also controls the water, always using the exhaust injector.
SargNickFury wrote:7.) Why come no one has ever made a steam loco for a sim this cool before? :) No joke It's just amazing. In many ways this feels like the "First" real steam train sim.
The 56xx came close, although it didn't have many of the features I built into the Connie, like the lubricator, the visible fire mass and so on. Apparently there was "carnage" on the forums, with people complaining that it was too difficult to operate. That probably put off some developers ... but I was undeterred!
SargNickFury wrote:Some of my questions are noobish maybe, but I do understand a little bit about locos just not how they work in sim, would like to throw these out there if anyone else is also struggling.
I have found some pdf's that helped some, as the discussion of steam locomotives and handling is really lacking with the base game.
This is a really great primer at the
"Pumpkin" a site full of technical writings by Douglas A Kerr
Principles of Steam Locomotive Valve Systems by Douglas A. Kerr and for the much more detailed and heavy reading.....This book lookslike was first released in 1909 this will tell you everything and more then you want to know down to mathmatics...(you can skim over it though) The history and discussion of the different type of "systems" is very good even for those of us who are not "physics" inclined.
Locomotive Boilers and Engines at Google books freeOr a simpler PDf here.
Locomotive Boilers and Engines (downloadable pdf)
I've got a long list of links in my "favourites" of detailed descriptions of how things work. There's one in particular that was especially useful and is well worth reading:
http://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?10,586430
) but I am sure it is there.
and as always, happy to be corrected where necessary, just thought I would give Sarg here a head start
). Anyway, your answers are all correct 
