Hello,

I decided I would post this question in the Railfanning section as opposed to the Interchange so as not to gum it up with my inquiry.

This is a topic that I've wondered about for many years. In my younger days, I dabbled in both volunteer and paid tourist railroad work. During my time, I witnessed two different schools of thought with regard to the appropriate time-frame for steam up of a coal burner. I will describe them as School 1 and School 2. I saw both schools applied first hand and in each instance it applied to smaller size steam.

School 1:

A Fri-Sun weekend of steam trips is scheduled. Starting on the Thursday before, the steam team arrives early and begins the slow ritual of steam up. This begins with small scraps of wood and newspaper. Over the course of many hours, the fire is slowly coaxed to life and boiler pressure occurs and increases over a slow pace. By the end of the day, the fire is in a condition to be banked overnight. Friday morning, the bank is turned and the engine is readied over the course of about three or four hours prior to the first trip. At the end of the day, she is brought back in and banked again. She holds a bank over each night until the schedule is satisfied. The ritual for dropping the fire is also a slow and gradual process of decent back to a cold state.

School 2:

A Fri-Sun weekend of steam trips is scheduled. Starting on Friday morning, the engine is brought to life over the course of about three or four hours. This begins with scraps of wood and newspaper and as quickly as the inferno will allow escalates to coal and operating pressure. By lunchtime, she is on the point of the scheduled slate of trips. At the end of the afternoon, the fire is dropped and the engine parked. Saturday and Sunday mornings are a repeat of this procedure.

The engine I witnessed experience School 1 ran for many years before and continues on to this day. The engines I witnessed under School 2 operated for many years before; however one concluded its career during my time with firebox trouble. The other was described to me by those in the know as being in great shape with little wear but also finds itself out of service today.

My question is: Are both of these schools right or is one better than the other or is there a third school that is preferable? Just curious. Thanks!

This is the type of question that should be over on the Interchange side, where there are more than a few people that operate steam on a frequent basis. I believe there was a discussion within the past year or so on this very topic.

Almost forty years ago I worked on the track crew for a shortline that also had a steam excursion on weekends. The particular engine was an oil burner; every Friday afternoon I came back to the shop early, checked my water and brought the engine up to 50 PSI or so. According to 'management' (such as it was-), this was to give the regular crew a head start on Saturday morning.

In hindsight, I don't think this was the right approach. The problem was that between 4 PM on Friday and Saturday morning, the boiler cooled down quite bit and most, if not all, of the pressure faded away. You can't bank the fire on an oil burner. Also, another thermal cycle was put on the boiler and firebox. And today, that practice would use up one of your service days; you only get 1472 of them.

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