I recently read an old but facinating article on how to boot an oil-fired steam engine and was wondering if anyone knows of a good article (or book or other resoruce) specifically on how to fire a locomotive that uses coal?Also, I am looking for details on how to keep a coal-fired steam engine ready to run from one day to the next, what you need to do overnight (especially what you need to watch out for or be prepared for if there is no hostler staying with the engine all night long, as I read happens at Steamtown ... what are the issues, concerns, potential problems with this approach?)

As far as a book on hand-firing, I can strongly recommend Fuel Economy by George H. Baker and published in 1921. This was reprinted by the (defunct?) Little River Locomotive Company in 1999.As to the steps of keeping the boiler overnight--I imagine it will vary from road to road. But basically the boiler is topped off and the fire is "banked". Banking involves a good layer on the grates that increases in depth as you come back to the back of the firebox. The stack is capped and everything allowed to sit and simmer until morningIn the morning, a light shaking of the forward grates and then the bank is pushed forward and fresh coal added to start bringing the pressure back up. Note that the importance or goal of "banking" the fire overnight is not for keeping the engine RTR (ready-to-run), but to reduce the stress on the boiler which will occur by allowing it to cool too much and then bringing pressure back up too quickly. Here at Heber, from cold start to running takes 24 hours. I have personally observed (and cringed!) as another railroad took one of their engines from cold start to running in less than four hours.If I remember correctly, during the Winter Games of 2002, Heber Valley and the Nevada Northern did some "jump-starting" with the three locomotives in sub-zero temperatures -- you out there, John Rimmasch? Others with more experience, please correct me.sc 'doc' lewis

A quick Google check found this copy of the above mentioned reference (look down the list about a dozen items to that for Baker, George H). Looks to be one of the original editions for about $40.00.http://www.abaa.org/dbp/catalogues.php?catnr=838&membernr=2062Disclaimer: I have no financial or other interest in the above item, other than making it's existance known to possible interested parties.sc 'doc' lewis

Thanks--that's very helpful

In the old days, most RRs used to bank the fires at night, with the procedure mentioned above, and then the night watchman would tend to the locomotives for the night, insuring the water levels were fine and that the fires didn't go out. Today for most applications that's way to expensive, I think most tourist railroads drop the fire at night then start afresh in the morning, to avoid the expense of paying a night watchmen. Some places still use them, I know for certain that both the C&TS and D&S still use night watchmen. Most of the time, even doing it the latter way it doesn't take very long at all to get a full head, because you actually have some pressure left over from the day before.At the museum I work with, we always start fires with wood, and I know for example the Mount Washington Cog Ry. does this too. My grandfather says on the old Boston and Maine they'd start fires with used rags soaked in kerosene. Generally speaking, you can't really burn very much coal until you have steam, because you need the induced draft to burn the coal. It takes about 3 hours at most to go from cold water to a full head, granted, our boilers are very tiny by standard gauge standards.The technique of "jump starting" which was mentioned, as I have heard it described, involves piping live steam from a "hot" engine to a "cold" engine, and then using the cold engine's injector to pump water into the empty boiler. This actually warms the water up a little bit and saves quite a bit of time in the firing up process.Regards,Trevor Hartford

Regarding "jump starting," also; Back in the day, when an engine was in the shop for maintenance and the fire had been dropped, there was often a house boiler. From this they could fill the engine with water that was already at a reasonable temprature to provide some level of instantaneous steam pressure. This was not especially hard on boilers as the boiler would be heated evenly throughout. The problem with heating a boiler too fast from a cold start using the fire is that the boiler is then heated unevenly. It will expand near the firebox, but still be nearly cold at the far end. This causes unusual stress on the boiler flues, staybolts, sheets etc. In our operation today, we keep the fire hot overnight, or even for a few days, rather than let the fire die. We don't normally bank the fire for a number of reasons, one of them being that labor in our organization is cheap. We keep a night hostler on the engine who keeps the firebox hot and the steam at a level that is below mawp, but high enough so it can be brought back up shortly before departure time. Say, maybe 220 instead of 250.Generally, with the size of the grate we tend to let much of the middle go out, and just keep the sides and back hot. To keep it all hot would make it difficult to maintain the steam pressure at a constant level. The idea in this case is to not let the pressure vary by more than maybe five pounds or so. Within a couple hours of departure time, the hostler lights off the middle grates, cleans the fire, gets rid of ashes, and brings the pressure up at as slow and even a rate as possible and still have it at operating pressure before the road crew reaches the cab. During the night, the hostler also cuts as much coal as possible toward the front of the tender to make it easily accessable for the road fireman, blows down water glasses, fills tenders with water as needed or directed, blows down the boiler from both sides when permissable. This is based on where the engine is parked relative to surrounding environment. Other tasks keep him busy depending on specific needs.When running, each fireman seems to have his own technique. Apparently there is no "wrong" or "right" way to do it as long as a) he doesn't blow it up, and b) the engineer gets all the steam he wants. (This said tongue in cheek)Generally, the fireman then uses the stoker for 99% of his coal needs. This is in contrast to the night hostler who doesn't use the stoker at all because it's way overkill. Like using a shotgun to kill a bumblebee. Still, the stoker jets don't seem to know how to put any coal against the back sheet and in the corners below the stoker pot. So, the fireman occasionally has to build up a heel back there. He knows when it needs it by watching the recovery rate of steam pressure on the gauge after adding water to the boiler. It is easy to spot. When scooping coal into these corners at speed, it is very interesting. There is so much air flowing through the firebox that when the door is opened and the scoop full of coal is placed through the opening, the draft tries to pull it out of your hand. Especially as you turn it sideways to drop the coal against the back. The face of the scoop is now right into the wind rushing through the open door. You really have to hang on to the scoop, or it will straighten out and you'll lose all your coal right out the stack, or it'll get caught by the stoker jets and be distributed where you don't need it. Mark D.

Mark, when you are hostling and keeping the bp 20 or 30 psi below max, how often do you have to add water to the boiler? I'm asking because of Robert's first post mentioning leaving an engine overnight with no hostler. Isn't that asking for disaster?

wood is a good way to start a stone cold boiler, as you can't really rush it. I know caring for the boiler is very important, but 24 hours to warm up seems a little bit much. I've always heard that 4-6 hours would suffice.I know where I work, I always encouter that green fireman whose face is beaming because they brought the fire up fast, "showing off" their capabilities, then I explain how that is malicious, they kind of pipe down. I guess it's hard to explain when you cannot see the expansion of the metal.I'd love to have a night watchman, but with one or two engines hot, it's not economical.It's intersting how everybody has different techiniques for something as simple as lighting a fire!

Depends on the size. For instaance, Mr. Lee takes about 20 hours to bring his locos up from cold. As of several years ago anyway. And as was said by several posters prior, banking is a very good practice if you know how to do it in an effective manner. I banked the locos at your place of employment about a dozen times each with no problems of the pops lifting as was a problem experienced in the past by managment. In the morning there was still 75psi and they were much happier for it.

On the engines we used to run... NS, we kept the engines fired all season except for the monthlies. At night we banked the engines, have about 250 psi. ,the boiler so full of water the injector will not lift, and a good sized bank in the back of the firebox. Put the cap on the stack with a small crack in it. The engine would last 12 plus hours before needing attention. After about 12 hours the bank is a bright red, the water still out of the top of the glass and the boiler pressure about 250 psi. But you need a tight boiler for this all to work real well.

As you can see from the other post, a lot depends on the service requirements, crew availablity,physical boiler size,etc. We drop the fires on our 30" gauge Shay every night, and when I'm assigned hostler duties(which seems ALWAYS!!) I arrive at 0430 in the morning to start up for operation at 0900. This allows for cleaning the firebox and grates of the previous days debris(read clinkers here),build a new fire with the rag and kerosene method,with wood on top of that, then add coal. I usaully build the firebed as a unit, kerosene rags or newspaper, wood the coal and light the whole works off. This is let to burn with whatever natrual draft there is available with the difference in height between the grates and stack. Once we reach about 90 psig, then start the air compressor which drafts up the stack and this will pull the boiler presuure up to operating pressure .While the fire is imparting it's BTU's to the water, I'll do the walk around and oil up the lubricators for the engine, compressor(air and steam sides) and grease up the engine and axleboxes. At around 80 psig test the injectors to make sure both are working, blowdown the water column,test the gauge cocks and gauge glass and make sure everything is in good working order there. There is always some creaking ,banging and groans as the boiler heats up and comes up to operating temperature,and you learn to recognize what is normal and what isn't. A close inspection around the boiler for leaking staybolts,fittings and tube ends while you're doing your walkaround to ensure the ol' gal is behaving and she's good to go. Once we're up to operating pressure and you make sure the safety valves lift at the set pressure and everything else is well, crack the valve to the Pyle National turbo-generator and do a lighting check..Headlight..check,marker lights..check,cab lights..check,water gauge light..check,steam gauge light..check, you're ready for the road. Ain't nothing to it once you've done it about 600 times!!

Leaving the engine overnight with a bank is not a safety hazard. All the appliances are shut off, and nothing is using steam. The water has been run up to the top. If for some reason something started leaking, it would be a long time before the crown would be uncovered. Even then, there isn't enough heat to do damage to the crown, IMO. If something major happened, like a flue gave up (unlikely) it would all come back into the firebox anyway and put the fire out. When we're hostling the fire overnight, the frequency of adding water is dependent on several things. One is how much "stuff" is running. Usually we'll shut down one or both air pumps. The dynamo is usually left running, but sometimes even that's off. The hostler can really notice the difference between running these appliances and not. With nothing running, the fire has to be kept very low to keep from running the pressure up. If the pressure runs up, you have to add water or the pops will go off. You can only add water so long and you really don't want to add any more. So, you need to control your fire. That's not impossible, but it is easier if you have something using up some steam so you can have a fire actually burning in there. The reason, of course, for keeping the sides and back hot is because you want to keep the boiler sheets hot without having too big of a fire.We have banked it, and it works. We did that often, years back. However, having a hostler on duty seems to make for a ready fire in the morning, and allows us to have a person on watch all night. Besides, I like the job.So, as far as how often I would add water, I guess first of all I add it any time I think it wants a drink. I s'pose on a typical night with one air pump and the dynamo going I might have to add water maybe...just guessing here, I've never really timed it... about half hour to 45 minutes I'll shoot in just a little, just to maintain it. If I'm working it up, it'll be more often.Mark D.Edited in;I forgot; I was going to say this too:When we light it up, we lay a layer of cardboard sheets across the grates to seal off most air flow. Then we scoop in a nice thick layer of coal, maybe three, four inches or more. Then we toss in all the old wood, boxes, dead cats, anything that might burn. On top of that a bunch of rags soaked in oil and then the fusee goes in. We can set up an artificial draft any time we want by plugging an air hose into a fitting on the blower pipe. We generally start preheating the engine a couple days before lighting it. It starts with propane heaters running inside the firebox. These will bring it up to about a hundred degrees in there after a day or so. After lighting the fire, we like to let it take overnight to come up to an operable pressure. A rough guess is that it would take 15 hours or more from lighting it to maybe 180 psi.

...to clarify the process at Heber. As an example, for a Friday morning run at 10:00am (where the boiler has been cooling down since the last run on the previous Saturday night), the fire is lit on Thursday morning (yes, using wood, oily rags, etc.) and is slowly built through the day. IIRC, there may be 100-120 lbs on the guage at the end of the day. The boiler is "topped-off", fire is banked (as described) and the stack is capped--no overnight hostler, no watchman, etc.Crew will show up with a 7:00am call time, shake the grates, push the bank forward, and finish bringing the pressure up.Perhaps only time will tell what toll those "fast and hard" fire-ups will take on the condition of those boilers--maybe some, maybe none.Does anyone have a different reference or training manual to recommend?sc "doc" lewis

But, you've been doing it this way for how long? My opinion only, but if you haven't had problems from your fire up technique yet, you must be doing it right. Mark D.

It seems like the biggest problem leaving a warm engine alone overnight is the possibility of the water draining from a leaky check valve. A little drip combined by the "shrinkage" of the cooling boiler may cause the water level to drop, but closing the boiler stop would remedy this problem.