Overall I really enjoyed the video, but I disagree with the comments at 6:11 around the water cocks. The FRA promotes the use of sight glasses as the more accurate means of showing water level with gauge cocks a backup means. Not only are you able to visibly read the levels at all times via the glass, boiler investigations from as far back as the 1920's confirmed that the backhead is subject to a water surge phenomenon while underway which can give a higher reading through the gauge cocks. A properly maintained and blown out water glass will give the best reading as water will always seek its own level. Plus I generally find reassurance in visually seeing the water at all times considering just how safety-critical it is.
Must have been the old heads that taught us on the narrow gauge going slow with those staunch opinions i suppose, haha. We do use the sight glasses 99% of the time. Pinning your comment for visibility.
@@Hyce777 hey Hyce if you were firing a coal burning standard Gauge steam locomotive from coffeville Kansas to Paola Kansas and the locomotive is a Santa Fe 484 Northern type would you be hand firing such a locomotive or would it be using a stoker and you were a helper engine on a modern freight train and you have an auxiliary tender how much coal and water would you need to get to Paola Kansas?
Have to say I much prefer having a sight glass. If the water is bobbing up and down, you know all the connecting tubes are clear. If the water level in the sight glass stops bobbing, you know at least one tube is blocked. You don't have to open a try valve to check - you can not only see the level over the firebox crown, but also see that your water glass is giving you a true reading, just by glancing at it all the time you're working.
@@jackx4311 I agree, I prefer the sight glass - was just always taught that the trycocks were the end-all-be-all. Apparently in narrow gauge land and nowhere else, lol!
Yes, please do make a video on all the ways a steam locomotive can fail spectacularly, or maybe you could tell us all the ways the Back to the Future train scene was unrealistic. I'd watch both of those videos.
Tonight on Top Gear: Colorado Railroad Museum Edition: Hyce continues to laugh like a hyena and starts a new line of shampoo: D&RG Fresh Mountain Air, Jeff sees his darkest fears, and D&RG 491 decides to unleash her fury against Double Farlies with a steam blowdown along the road. Also, love the content, glad to be a part of the channel.
I'm starting as a fireman student (learning to become a fireman) this year here in Sweden, these videos you make are amazing and really help out a lot for me both with narowgauge (891mm) and normal gauge (1435mm), i love learning about these beautiful machines, they have a simple princip but they are packed with technologie and power.
I just watched an hour long video of a guy showing me how an old TV switch mixer works. Now I'm watching a hour long video on how to shovel coal into a steam train. I'm on a roll tonight, why are these super niche hobbies sooo interesting to me all of a sudden. Great video. I think I have another new hobby. TRAINS! :)
Great video! I'm a Volunteer out of a Railroad in Maryland. Your not wrong You gotta treat the steam engine right. My Saying is "You treat the Steam Engine right she will treat you right" Keep up the awesome videos!
You mentioned using sunglasses to view the fire. You might want to try Enchroma CX3 sunglasses (intended for the colorblind). They have an absorption bend in the yellow, allowing you to see "through" the yellow flames to the coal below. They also intensify color (even for the normal-sighted to see subtleties). Another type of glass to use is glassblower's "didymium" glasses. They also absorb the yellow glare.
I've always been passionate about steam locomotives, since I was a child, but here in Brazil there aren't many places you can go to see these engineering beauties!!! One day I will see… one day… meanwhile, it was a delight to watch this tour, thank you!!!
Damn, as someone not really experienced how all this stream locomotive thing works, this was truly an insight. The things you have to know and be able to do both mentally and physically to get one of them beasts going is astounding! Mad respect to you and all the other engineers / firemen out there. And you explained stuff really well, was fun to watch. Thanks for all your effort. Is always fun to see someone who enjoys their job!
Your videos are really showing me how our power engineering has moved on the stability curve. Steam engines are almost the definition of the peak of instability, with both the high end and the low end leading to catastrophic failure. Meanwhile cutting edge nuclear reactor designs are at the bottom of the stability valley with the laws of physics maintaining that stability
As soon as I read this I heard a narrator’s voice in my head from a game I knew I played as a kid….after a quick google search it all came back to me….Lionel Train town!!! I remember how the trains would run off one side of the map only to come back on the other and cause all kinds of havoc if you were moving another train and didn’t have the switches set right.
42:40 Anthracite coal is basically "big power" coal. High carbon density, and very pure. Very hard to ignite but it burns long and clean, requires a lot of heat and a big draft to burn, so mostly when the locomotive is working. We had a ride-on Reading A5 camelback with a Wootten firebox, started on Charcoal, then moved to bituminous until the fire burned nice and even, then you could start mixing in Anthracite. You really want to work with small size Anthracite to take advantage of as much surface area as possible to get it to burn.
Unfortunately, it is very hard to find good quality anthracite in the US these days, especially at a good price. The CNJ 113 runs on basically a 50-50 mix of bituminous and anthracite for this very reason!
Our area, we have anthracite literally sitting on top of the ground. It’s absolutely everywhere. Put some in the fireplace, didn’t have to stoke it for over a day.
Hey Hyce you probably already know this but just want to say if you're hand firing any kind of locomotive or working in any capacity where your clothes get sooty make sure they get washed promptly and separately from other clothes. The carcinogens in the soot are a huge cause of cancer and you don't want that crap getting on your other clothes, or around your house. You also don't want to "rewear" dirty work clothes because that drastically increases your exposure. Also if your skin gets sooty or you smell like smoke you want to shower as soon as you can, for the same reason. This has been fire tips from a firefighter ("fireman" haha), thanks for tuning in
Anthracite coal is best with a strong draft, a deep firebox, and it helps to break it up - if you put a football sized piece in a small firebox its gonna sit there forever if you aren't working hard and if you are then it'll turn into a meteorite and you'll begin blowing off. Like furnace coke really. The Welsh stuff, which for all of industrial history was favoured by steamship captains and British railway companies, especially the Great Western, has a very high calorific value and low sulphur. It doesn't produce much smoke (as long as you have a brick-arch) and when its been in long enough to ignite it doesn't burn so much as glow white-hot. Smaller tank engines on branch lines (little 0-4-2Ts with 5'6" drivers pulling one or two coaches) like a saucer-shaped fire with high front corners - you can almost have lost the back corners by the end of the day and you'll make it home just right. On a big engine (such as a Great Western 'King' with six 6'6" drivers) you want it built right up to the firedoor before starting and if you keep it going right you'll have steam in hand the whole length of the journey. The 'King' class was the last and largest of the Great Western Railway's express types - you wouldn't want to get knocked down by one! The strength of exhaust blast needed is best epitomised by the much smaller 'Manor' class - have a listen to one while working - tis quite a noise. They weren't actually all that when built, the blast-pipe nozzle was narrowed after a few years and they were much improved. As all the 'big' Great Western passenger engines were 4-6-0s, they were expectedly smart when getting away with a load - all the weight would be upon the driving wheels (they tried to do a Pacific once - it had a wide firebox and was expectedly a failure.)
I was able to understand the first few sentences until you got to football, after that I had a stroke so big it killed several people in my neighborhood
My great-grandfather was a fireman 100 years ago. Seeing this video really helped me appreciate the skills he had to have. Later, he moved to Pontiac to work in a car factory. He was still a fireman there, too. I'm not sure how that was in a factory. Anyway, thanks for the informative video.
At the railroad I get to run steam locomotives at the engineer and fireman positions are combined somewhat. They are oil- burning engines, so it isn't so bad, but the fireman just puts water into the boiler and does the blowdown. Also, Hyce I definitely appreciate the grade changes on the water level. At one of our stops, we are pointing uphill and at the other downhill. It is a rollercoaster railroad. Great video
Great video, awesome explanations of everything. From my experience, it's always good to get into a pattern. Shovel on the coal, take a seat, check the surrounding area out the window, check your water level and add as needed, repeat. I also worked on a 3 foot gauge circle, so in our cases it is much easier get that pattern going. It's a real lost art! As soon as you mentioned the air brake problem with the older brake system, I knew it was an overcharge. Always gotta remember to leave it in the running position with the 8, 6 and A valves!
Great grandad was a fireman for the n&w and worked on some of the 6xx series(not 611, he was on the cavalier not the Powhatan arrow) so its cool to see what he did
One of the things I found hardest to get right was aiming the coal to get it EXACTLY where it was needed - especially on those USATC 0-6-0 switchers. Instead of having double sliding doors like most British locos used, they have a circular swivelling flap which makes really awkward to get a decent sized shovel through the stupidly small gap with a nice smooth swing to reach the front corners of the grate. As well as being a pretty large grate for such a small engine, it's very shallow, too. And having most of the firebox inside the cab, on hot humid days - a killer. A friend who was rostered to fire one of them in a particularly hot spell in late July sweated off half a stone (7 lbs) in a week, and told the roster clerk "Never again!"
20:38 On german locomotives, the blowdown sits at the very bottom of the boiler below the locomotive. It is called "Abschlammer", because it´s there to get rid of all the impurities ("Schlamm") in the water.
I've heard it said that people used to be able to tell which engineer is driving the train by the way he blows the whistle. I can really see how that could be true. I LOVE steam whistles!
I once had the amazing opportunity, to co maintain and operate a little steam vessle for the course of roughly 2 years, not that long ago. And once even operate it mainly alone for 2 whole days on a steam event. I loved it so much, never had a 10 our day rush past this fast! That little thing was such a hand full to operate. Im getting flashbacks seeing you fire the 20. Love it. I vividly remeber the condensed water from the wistle sprinkling my face, i really miss it. 😄
Thank you for this wonderful video. I am reliving my days as a steam locomotive fireman on the Valley RR in Conn. I fired four different engines . One engine the 40 was not superheated and used a lot of coal and. Water. I enjoyed my time there and some days were easy and other days it was difficult. Sometimes we had good coal and other time it was mostly fines. Never had baseball sized coal.. I am 83 now and i stopped firing in 1994. I do miss it but physically I can’t do it any more. In addition, at the Valley the fireman was the head end brakeman and we had to cut the engine off at Deep river and run around the train running in reverse all the way back to Essex. Some days it was very hot and the most difficult time I had was when the temperature went way below freezing . The water froze everywhere it was difficult but I miss those days. I must be crazy or just a die hard railroader.
This is amazing, I've learnt so many things I've always wanted to know thanks to you! So glad I found your channel By the way, if radiated heat is killing your gopros maybe try wrapping them in aluminium foil. Might reflect enough of it to keep them alive longer :)
This is a great review of how to hand fire a steam locomotive. It was more difficult when I volunteered there because the track was not a full loop. We’d load passengers at Delay Junction and go up the hill and stop at No Agua Tank to unload/re- load. So you’d get to the top with a nice hot fire and then stop. Found myself with too much fire AND water a couple of times but I was a rookie that wasn’t there very long and we only ran steam 3 or 4 times a year if I remember correctly. The fireman side injector on 346 was picky and it usually took me 2 or 3 try’s to get it to start. If there were videos of me firing it would show me incessantly blowing down the sight glass to check water level.😀 I really enjoyed the challenge of balancing everything to keep proper pressure and water level.
I don't fire any engines but still think I understand the basic concepts of constant watching and observing and planning ahead as was common in a lot of work back in the day and is lost to most of us today. With everything digital handed to us on a silver platter instantly we don't tend to think 5-10-15 minuets or hours in advance. I observe that the fireman is really the engineer and the engineer who is running the engine. The engineer is more of a driver but still has to be thinking ahead. My own similar experience is sailing. You are constantly evaluating, observing, thinking of everything including contingency plans and thinking varying times into the future for different actions you will need to take. I also have done lots of cooking on large wood burning stoves (actually one was designed for coal but we were not allowed to use it for environmental reasons). It is an art all the same reasons, things are not instant, you have to think ahead, maintain the fire and supply chain (did you bring enough wood/water/food from the shed to the ship where the stove is for the meal...) Thanks for the 101 series. I may yet work on a RR when I retire. Too many irons in the fire right now.
I'm an engineer and ofcource I started as a fireman on our narrowgauge in Sweden. And in Sweden the fireman i positioned on the right, We run on coal and have 4 locos in different state of repair, and a a fifth that is running as our main engine. We even have the only excisting loco outside of UK that is made by Fletcher and Jennings in the UK.
Glad to see you explain details of how to read the fire, and stoke coal evenly across the fire box, allowing for even heat+ airflow... plus importance of planning steam/burn rate in advance for the upcoming grade & amount of work+steam the engine will need over the next 10-30 min... You may also discuss timing aspects of water injection, how it would certainly be needed before a long pull, but will cool your boiler in the short term... so it needs to happen well in advance, giving you time to rebuild a strong head of steam. A long pull will also mean that the loco+boiler is pointed Up hill a few degrees, which gives you a few more inches of water covering the top of fire box at back of boiler. (and level in sight glass goes up, even though total water in boiler did not increase) Working freight steamers in 1940s still need to inject some water on a long upgrade even though the sight glass shows full (knowing you are still using lots of steam, and front of boiler has less water) Once you reach the Top of a long grade, you are working with a hot fire and depleted boiler... The Loco will level off and may start to point down hill. They may still have 100+ rail cars behind them to pull up the hill and over the top, but now water in the boiler flows toward the Front of the boiler, leaving Low water over a hot firebox/crown sheet. (can lead to a dangerous situation in just a few minutes, unless thinking ahead) With longer working trains, it was possible for locomotive to make it over top of hill, be pointed downhill, but low on steam and stall with weight of 3/4 of the cars that were still on back side of hill. Please keep explaining as much detail as you can about the knowlege, planning, efforts needed to properly operate steam trains in the past. 😊
Heh.. that was pretty cool with the Firing 20 coaching part. When she was chuffing hard you can see the draft in the box tugging on the fire door in time with the cylinder chuffs. 👍
This video made me realize how much I want the K37 in RRO. Not only is it big and powerful, but that cab is awesome. The deckless engines just feel so cramped in first person, and I've binned trains because I had to turn my camera so far back to get at the brakes, and couldn't get to it fast enough.
Love the videos bub, been a huge train buff since I grew up in Sugarcreek Ohio on the Ohio central, and watching your vidys has made me join the fort wane railroad society and start volunteering this winter, happy forth 🇺🇸🤘
So i just started watching you and thought what is this kind of nerdery with train. but i have to admit. You make the whole thing about trains so much more interesting than what i could imagine it was. Now i cant stop watching your vids. Keep it upp man Great work
I've been a fireman on the Black Hills Central Railroad for about a week now. While the coal stuff isn't as applicable to our engines, the water stuff is really similar to what we do. It's amazing learning how all these concepts apply to what we do.
When you first start firing engines you think you just chuck in the coal and that's it. My experience was with South African steam engines in the 70's. I remember with S2 class engines you fired the coal along the sides in a dish type pattern. 14 R class engines you fired towards the back and the draft sucked the coal forward. I had a fair amount of experience on H2s and a limited amount on GO's and GMAM Garratt engines, some of which had mechanical firers and I needed assistance from the drivers who were familiar with these systems. This wasn't a career for me. I worked to save for university and did a full year first followed by two 3 month stints over the university summer holidays. Never regret it!
Dude! Not only are you a steam fan. But you are a guitarist who prefers Marshall Amps! My man! I feel like we'd be bro's after like ten minutes of hanging out!
If it was one of the usual guys who's really familiar they would've gotten a very dirty look. In this case, a good friend of mine who's run a lot of diesel and was just now breaking into steam, so it was a teaching moment.
As someone who's been a structural firefighter for ages, and therefore quite good at reading fire, what it's doing, what it's going to do, etc. This is something I definitely have to try before I die.. Now to find a coal fired historical railroad that isn't 20 hours away...
I like that you choose to work around these giant bombs... though I guess I am biased due to Derail Valley (which multiplies time by like 100x?) They are super cool though! Incredibly inefficient/temperamental but cool.
Thank you very much for posting this! I am right now learning how to fire UP #119 and this video definitely helps for how to do it! lately have been making the safety valves go off more than I would care to, so these tips might allow me to "control" 119 better!
so glad to see you back on CRRM... you're not only a steam loco engineer/driver/fireman - you're actually "steam"... I didn't had the oppertunity to operate the real stuff a lot (just here and there a couple of times) but I enjoy my "little" engines a lot an finally, they behave mostly the same to the real thing, but in a "trunk-sized" version. I love & enjoy your content sad to get you lost in the RRO team, but knowing you more involved as the CRRM, I have to book another flight over to the states some day soon.
19:19 On our steam locomotives we use fire hoses to fill up the tenders from a hydrant near the depot. There's a small hole in the hose and on hot days i'll angle the water spraying out of the hose leak up into the air so I can also cool myself down with the water haha
Thanks for the fire lesson on coal, I learned allot about coal from video, hope to visit the museum soon, never been. Great video enjoyed watching 👍👍👍👍👍😂🎉
hearing and even seeing how much depth there is in these things, it makes me a little sad that only NOW does the average person have the ability to really freely record their thoughts and share them with others. how much more advanced, or at least easier to teach, would stuff like this have been if we had the ability to communicate so easily then as we do now.
its a small miracle that we even have what we have from then. It's a big part of what makes preservation so important to me. There's a lot of the human experience encoded in these ol iron horses. The only way for us to access that information is to go and DO the things that people of 100 years ago were doing.
Great video and very informative and easy to understand. Working on becoming a firemen at Cass in the future we can definitely relate to the steep grades lol.
From what I've heard in a video with Neil Vodden (retired Southern Pacific engineer from the 40s and 50s), he explained it like this. I don't want to say the water glass is a luxury, its a very necessary thing. However, to know the true level of water in the boiler with an absolute level of certainty, you use the try cocks (or as he called them, gauge cocks). The water glass is a necessary thing, but if you are trying to check it in a hurry, you don't truly know if everything is functioning absolutely correctly.
Someone in the past has mentioned that you can tell when a grate needs more fuel by the color of smoke at the stack. Is that only true for a wood fire?
You certainly can with coal as well! Though, it's an indicator of complete combustion - if you've got an uneven fire for whatever reason, you might get darker smoke while still having a spot that needs coal. If the stack is clear, you're completely combusting and getting the most heat out - but you're going to need more coal right away. Usually you aim for a light haze.
You know I really wish that there was a game of some sort that really simulated the Nuances and principles of hand firing an engine shown in this video...… Maybe someone will look into that some day.
![Brakeman 101: How do you make sure a train will stop?!? [Terminal Airbrake Test]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/chjupYPVHZ8/mqdefault.jpg)
Overall I really enjoyed the video, but I disagree with the comments at 6:11 around the water cocks. The FRA promotes the use of sight glasses as the more accurate means of showing water level with gauge cocks a backup means. Not only are you able to visibly read the levels at all times via the glass, boiler investigations from as far back as the 1920's confirmed that the backhead is subject to a water surge phenomenon while underway which can give a higher reading through the gauge cocks. A properly maintained and blown out water glass will give the best reading as water will always seek its own level. Plus I generally find reassurance in visually seeing the water at all times considering just how safety-critical it is.
Must have been the old heads that taught us on the narrow gauge going slow with those staunch opinions i suppose, haha. We do use the sight glasses 99% of the time. Pinning your comment for visibility.
@@Hyce777 hey Hyce if you were firing a coal burning standard Gauge steam locomotive from coffeville Kansas to Paola Kansas and the locomotive is a Santa Fe 484 Northern type would you be hand firing such a locomotive or would it be using a stoker and you were a helper engine on a modern freight train and you have an auxiliary tender how much coal and water would you need to get to Paola Kansas?
Have to say I much prefer having a sight glass. If the water is bobbing up and down, you know all the connecting tubes are clear. If the water level in the sight glass stops bobbing, you know at least one tube is blocked. You don't have to open a try valve to check - you can not only see the level over the firebox crown, but also see that your water glass is giving you a true reading, just by glancing at it all the time you're working.
@@jackx4311 I agree, I prefer the sight glass - was just always taught that the trycocks were the end-all-be-all. Apparently in narrow gauge land and nowhere else, lol!
Coal fired steamship Titanic
Yes, please do make a video on all the ways a steam locomotive can fail spectacularly, or maybe you could tell us all the ways the Back to the Future train scene was unrealistic. I'd watch both of those videos.
Worst case scenario, look up B.L.E.V.E
@@blackoak4978 Ok.
Thank you for explaining what the fireman does! The GoPros captured everything beautifully despite the fire threatening to melt them. Well done!
The intro of this video is absolutely fantastic. Also good job with explaining how all of this works without confusing everyone.
whats the song in the intro if you know?
Tonight on Top Gear: Colorado Railroad Museum Edition: Hyce continues to laugh like a hyena and starts a new line of shampoo: D&RG Fresh Mountain Air, Jeff sees his darkest fears, and D&RG 491 decides to unleash her fury against Double Farlies with a steam blowdown along the road.
Also, love the content, glad to be a part of the channel.
Thanks for being a part, RC :)
Gotta love that Intro Song ;)
This deserves way more views than it has. It’s honestly my favorite video on the channel.
I was hoping the coal scoop thumbnail would gain clicks, but I guess not. Glad you enjoy it!
Man, ShovelCam is so cool. Watching those big smooth windup throws to bomb the back of 491's fire is so satisfying.
I'm starting as a fireman student (learning to become a fireman) this year here in Sweden, these videos you make are amazing and really help out a lot for me both with narowgauge (891mm) and normal gauge (1435mm), i love learning about these beautiful machines, they have a simple princip but they are packed with technologie and power.
I just watched an hour long video of a guy showing me how an old TV switch mixer works. Now I'm watching a hour long video on how to shovel coal into a steam train. I'm on a roll tonight, why are these super niche hobbies sooo interesting to me all of a sudden. Great video. I think I have another new hobby. TRAINS! :)
Glad you enjoyed :)
Great video! I'm a Volunteer out of a Railroad in Maryland. Your not wrong You gotta treat the steam engine right. My Saying is "You treat the Steam Engine right she will treat you right" Keep up the awesome videos!
You mentioned using sunglasses to view the fire. You might want to try Enchroma CX3 sunglasses (intended for the colorblind). They have an absorption bend in the yellow, allowing you to see "through" the yellow flames to the coal below. They also intensify color (even for the normal-sighted to see subtleties). Another type of glass to use is glassblower's "didymium" glasses. They also absorb the yellow glare.
Huh, that's something I've not heard about. I'll have to give those a shot!n
I've always been passionate about steam locomotives, since I was a child, but here in Brazil there aren't many places you can go to see these engineering beauties!!! One day I will see… one day… meanwhile, it was a delight to watch this tour, thank you!!!
Damn, as someone not really experienced how all this stream locomotive thing works, this was truly an insight. The things you have to know and be able to do both mentally and physically to get one of them beasts going is astounding! Mad respect to you and all the other engineers / firemen out there. And you explained stuff really well, was fun to watch. Thanks for all your effort. Is always fun to see someone who enjoys their job!
Your videos are really showing me how our power engineering has moved on the stability curve. Steam engines are almost the definition of the peak of instability, with both the high end and the low end leading to catastrophic failure.
Meanwhile cutting edge nuclear reactor designs are at the bottom of the stability valley with the laws of physics maintaining that stability
Definitely true - steam in this era really wasn't stable.
"Fire Stoker Jobs are NOT For the Faint of Heart"
As soon as I read this I heard a narrator’s voice in my head from a game I knew I played as a kid….after a quick google search it all came back to me….Lionel Train town!!! I remember how the trains would run off one side of the map only to come back on the other and cause all kinds of havoc if you were moving another train and didn’t have the switches set right.
42:40 Anthracite coal is basically "big power" coal. High carbon density, and very pure. Very hard to ignite but it burns long and clean, requires a lot of heat and a big draft to burn, so mostly when the locomotive is working. We had a ride-on Reading A5 camelback with a Wootten firebox, started on Charcoal, then moved to bituminous until the fire burned nice and even, then you could start mixing in Anthracite. You really want to work with small size Anthracite to take advantage of as much surface area as possible to get it to burn.
Unfortunately, it is very hard to find good quality anthracite in the US these days, especially at a good price. The CNJ 113 runs on basically a 50-50 mix of bituminous and anthracite for this very reason!
Our area, we have anthracite literally sitting on top of the ground. It’s absolutely everywhere. Put some in the fireplace, didn’t have to stoke it for over a day.
@@PowerTrain611 CNJ 113 is located in the middle of the largest anthracite fields in the world.
@@Jaffacall3251 Ironic, isn't it?
Hey Hyce you probably already know this but just want to say if you're hand firing any kind of locomotive or working in any capacity where your clothes get sooty make sure they get washed promptly and separately from other clothes. The carcinogens in the soot are a huge cause of cancer and you don't want that crap getting on your other clothes, or around your house. You also don't want to "rewear" dirty work clothes because that drastically increases your exposure. Also if your skin gets sooty or you smell like smoke you want to shower as soon as you can, for the same reason.
This has been fire tips from a firefighter ("fireman" haha), thanks for tuning in
Cheers mate! Didn't have the details of all that. Good to know there's more a reason to be clean :)
I can see why the museum hired you. You are smart. That was easily the best hour I've had on YT in days.
Cheers David! I appreciate that :)
Anthracite coal is best with a strong draft, a deep firebox, and it helps to break it up - if you put a football sized piece in a small firebox its gonna sit there forever if you aren't working hard and if you are then it'll turn into a meteorite and you'll begin blowing off. Like furnace coke really. The Welsh stuff, which for all of industrial history was favoured by steamship captains and British railway companies, especially the Great Western, has a very high calorific value and low sulphur. It doesn't produce much smoke (as long as you have a brick-arch) and when its been in long enough to ignite it doesn't burn so much as glow white-hot.
Smaller tank engines on branch lines (little 0-4-2Ts with 5'6" drivers pulling one or two coaches) like a saucer-shaped fire with high front corners - you can almost have lost the back corners by the end of the day and you'll make it home just right. On a big engine (such as a Great Western 'King' with six 6'6" drivers) you want it built right up to the firedoor before starting and if you keep it going right you'll have steam in hand the whole length of the journey. The 'King' class was the last and largest of the Great Western Railway's express types - you wouldn't want to get knocked down by one!
The strength of exhaust blast needed is best epitomised by the much smaller 'Manor' class - have a listen to one while working - tis quite a noise. They weren't actually all that when built, the blast-pipe nozzle was narrowed after a few years and they were much improved. As all the 'big' Great Western passenger engines were 4-6-0s, they were expectedly smart when getting away with a load - all the weight would be upon the driving wheels (they tried to do a Pacific once - it had a wide firebox and was expectedly a failure.)
Cheers for the details on those locos, that's awesome.
I was able to understand the first few sentences until you got to football, after that I had a stroke so big it killed several people in my neighborhood
i heat my home with anthracite. it burns long, steady, and cleanly. it is very different then bit coal.
Thank you for continuing this series. I love the intro, some music to fit the mood with some good camera angles really makes this good result.
I'm a conductor with BNSF Railway.. Been with the company almost 15 years.. I couldn't imagine doing this back in the day.. Cool Video!
This intro is awesome, the footage and the music go so well together
My great-grandfather was a fireman 100 years ago. Seeing this video really helped me appreciate the skills he had to have. Later, he moved to Pontiac to work in a car factory. He was still a fireman there, too. I'm not sure how that was in a factory. Anyway, thanks for the informative video.
Love it! So cool to see. Kudos to the museum for letting you get all this footage.
At the railroad I get to run steam locomotives at the engineer and fireman positions are combined somewhat. They are oil- burning engines, so it isn't so bad, but the fireman just puts water into the boiler and does the blowdown. Also, Hyce I definitely appreciate the grade changes on the water level. At one of our stops, we are pointing uphill and at the other downhill. It is a rollercoaster railroad. Great video
Great video, awesome explanations of everything.
From my experience, it's always good to get into a pattern. Shovel on the coal, take a seat, check the surrounding area out the window, check your water level and add as needed, repeat. I also worked on a 3 foot gauge circle, so in our cases it is much easier get that pattern going. It's a real lost art!
As soon as you mentioned the air brake problem with the older brake system, I knew it was an overcharge. Always gotta remember to leave it in the running position with the 8, 6 and A valves!
Yup! Engineer is used to an H6 and we had the G6. No detent to separate overcharge and running - easy mistake to make if you're not familiar.
@@Hyce777 It's the devil in the details. The smallest difference can make for a huge pain.
Wow. I shed a tear at that intro!
Please make more of these types of videos, that was amazing.
Great grandad was a fireman for the n&w and worked on some of the 6xx series(not 611, he was on the cavalier not the Powhatan arrow) so its cool to see what he did
One of the things I found hardest to get right was aiming the coal to get it EXACTLY where it was needed - especially on those USATC 0-6-0 switchers. Instead of having double sliding doors like most British locos used, they have a circular swivelling flap which makes really awkward to get a decent sized shovel through the stupidly small gap with a nice smooth swing to reach the front corners of the grate. As well as being a pretty large grate for such a small engine, it's very shallow, too. And having most of the firebox inside the cab, on hot humid days - a killer. A friend who was rostered to fire one of them in a particularly hot spell in late July sweated off half a stone (7 lbs) in a week, and told the roster clerk "Never again!"
thank you for this hyce
20:38 On german locomotives, the blowdown sits at the very bottom of the boiler below the locomotive. It is called "Abschlammer", because it´s there to get rid of all the impurities ("Schlamm") in the water.
Yes its literally a blowdown :P
I've heard it said that people used to be able to tell which engineer is driving the train by the way he blows the whistle. I can really see how that could be true.
I LOVE steam whistles!
I once had the amazing opportunity, to co maintain and operate a little steam vessle for the course of roughly 2 years, not that long ago. And once even operate it mainly alone for 2 whole days on a steam event. I loved it so much, never had a 10 our day rush past this fast! That little thing was such a hand full to operate. Im getting flashbacks seeing you fire the 20. Love it. I vividly remeber the condensed water from the wistle sprinkling my face, i really miss it. 😄
Thank you for this wonderful video. I am reliving my days as a steam locomotive fireman on the Valley RR in Conn. I fired four different engines . One engine the 40 was not superheated and used a lot of coal and. Water. I enjoyed my time there and some days were easy and other days it was difficult. Sometimes we had good coal and other time it was mostly fines. Never had baseball sized coal.. I am 83 now and i stopped firing in 1994. I do miss it but physically I can’t do it any more. In addition, at the Valley the fireman was the head end brakeman and we had to cut the engine off at Deep river and run around the train running in reverse all the way back to Essex. Some days it was very hot and the most difficult time I had was when the temperature went way below freezing . The water froze everywhere it was difficult but I miss those days. I must be crazy or just a die hard railroader.
Awsome intro and I find it informational
Coal shovel cam is always a really cool view of the fire in the firebox
This is amazing, I've learnt so many things I've always wanted to know thanks to you! So glad I found your channel
By the way, if radiated heat is killing your gopros maybe try wrapping them in aluminium foil. Might reflect enough of it to keep them alive longer :)
That, among a few other case options are on my list of things to try. :) thanks
I'm a fire starter in the UK so have been learning the art of firing and realise how hard it is to shovel
Quite enjoy these videos. As a carpenter and machinist, I don’t do anything with steam or trains, but I’m enjoying the videos.
This is a great review of how to hand fire a steam locomotive.
It was more difficult when I volunteered there because the track was not a full loop. We’d load passengers at Delay Junction and go up the hill and stop at No Agua Tank to unload/re- load. So you’d get to the top with a nice hot fire and then stop. Found myself with too much fire AND water a couple of times but I was a rookie that wasn’t there very long and we only ran steam 3 or 4 times a year if I remember correctly. The fireman side injector on 346 was picky and it usually took me 2 or 3 try’s to get it to start. If there were videos of me firing it would show me incessantly blowing down the sight glass to check water level.😀
I really enjoyed the challenge of balancing everything to keep proper pressure and water level.
I can only imagine how annoying it was to fire pre-circle, and - fun fact, that injector is still cantankerous.
I would love a full video of you and your crew members working on a locomotive
42:42 Another similarity between 491 and a cat: don't like being fed anything except what they're used to xD
Those intro shots are amazing! Hope to see more like those in the future
I don't fire any engines but still think I understand the basic concepts of constant watching and observing and planning ahead as was common in a lot of work back in the day and is lost to most of us today. With everything digital handed to us on a silver platter instantly we don't tend to think 5-10-15 minuets or hours in advance. I observe that the fireman is really the engineer and the engineer who is running the engine. The engineer is more of a driver but still has to be thinking ahead. My own similar experience is sailing. You are constantly evaluating, observing, thinking of everything including contingency plans and thinking varying times into the future for different actions you will need to take. I also have done lots of cooking on large wood burning stoves (actually one was designed for coal but we were not allowed to use it for environmental reasons). It is an art all the same reasons, things are not instant, you have to think ahead, maintain the fire and supply chain (did you bring enough wood/water/food from the shed to the ship where the stove is for the meal...) Thanks for the 101 series. I may yet work on a RR when I retire. Too many irons in the fire right now.
really cool to see the 20 in full operation after having spent time working on it at the burg in 2018/2019. Great videos!
Cheers, thanks for doing the work :)
I'm an engineer and ofcource I started as a fireman on our narrowgauge in Sweden. And in Sweden the fireman i positioned on the right, We run on coal and have 4 locos in different state of repair, and a a fifth that is running as our main engine. We even have the only excisting loco outside of UK that is made by Fletcher and Jennings in the UK.
Glad to see you explain details of how to read the fire, and stoke coal evenly across the fire box, allowing for even heat+ airflow... plus importance of planning steam/burn rate in advance for the upcoming grade & amount of work+steam the engine will need over the next 10-30 min...
You may also discuss timing aspects of water injection, how it would certainly be needed before a long pull, but will cool your boiler in the short term... so it needs to happen well in advance, giving you time to rebuild a strong head of steam.
A long pull will also mean that the loco+boiler is pointed Up hill a few degrees, which gives you a few more inches of water covering the top of fire box at back of boiler. (and level in sight glass goes up, even though total water in boiler did not increase)
Working freight steamers in 1940s still need to inject some water on a long upgrade even though the sight glass shows full (knowing you are still using lots of steam, and front of boiler has less water) Once you reach the Top of a long grade, you are working with a hot fire and depleted boiler... The Loco will level off and may start to point down hill. They may still have 100+ rail cars behind them to pull up the hill and over the top, but now water in the boiler flows toward the Front of the boiler, leaving Low water over a hot firebox/crown sheet. (can lead to a dangerous situation in just a few minutes, unless thinking ahead)
With longer working trains, it was possible for locomotive to make it over top of hill, be pointed downhill, but low on steam and stall with weight of 3/4 of the cars that were still on back side of hill.
Please keep explaining as much detail as you can about the knowlege, planning, efforts needed to properly operate steam trains in the past. 😊
To be honest, this should be used as training videos for new fireman. Gotta love details details details. Amazing video Mark
The Audio of the Locomotive working is really really great
Thanks for adding the water level checks at the beginning:)
Ya only make that mistake on a video once, hahaha
Heh.. that was pretty cool with the Firing 20 coaching part. When she was chuffing hard you can see the draft in the box tugging on the fire door in time with the cylinder chuffs. 👍
Right? The draft is pretty impressive.
This video made me realize how much I want the K37 in RRO. Not only is it big and powerful, but that cab is awesome. The deckless engines just feel so cramped in first person, and I've binned trains because I had to turn my camera so far back to get at the brakes, and couldn't get to it fast enough.
Love the videos bub, been a huge train buff since I grew up in Sugarcreek Ohio on the Ohio central, and watching your vidys has made me join the fort wane railroad society and start volunteering this winter, happy forth 🇺🇸🤘
Cheers mate! Much appreciated, happy 4th :)
Nice model train set in the background
Man... I just needed someone to make an hour long video talking about steam locomotives. Thank you for that! Subscribing without a second thought!
19:18: Bro, Hyce is havin' a good time. 😂
You are a very knowledgeable young man enjoyed your video.
So i just started watching you and thought what is this kind of nerdery with train. but i have to admit. You make the whole thing about trains so much more interesting than what i could imagine it was. Now i cant stop watching your vids. Keep it upp man Great work
Cheers mate! It's definitely nerdy for sure, but the best kind of nerdy.
Its always a little bit bittersweet when I find really good videos about things I'll never get to do 😭
I've been a fireman on the Black Hills Central Railroad for about a week now. While the coal stuff isn't as applicable to our engines, the water stuff is really similar to what we do. It's amazing learning how all these concepts apply to what we do.
It really is, isn't it?
Wow there really is an art to fireing every facinating.
Would be great to see a shut down series. Learned a lot. Thanks
When you first start firing engines you think you just chuck in the coal and that's it. My experience was with South African steam engines in the 70's. I remember with S2 class engines you fired the coal along the sides in a dish type pattern. 14 R class engines you fired towards the back and the draft sucked the coal forward. I had a fair amount of experience on H2s and a limited amount on GO's and GMAM Garratt engines, some of which had mechanical firers and I needed assistance from the drivers who were familiar with these systems. This wasn't a career for me. I worked to save for university and did a full year first followed by two 3 month stints over the university summer holidays. Never regret it!
Dude! Not only are you a steam fan. But you are a guitarist who prefers Marshall Amps! My man! I feel like we'd be bro's after like ten minutes of hanging out!
I do love me Marshalls :) come join the discord and chat!
Great video as always Hyce! Kudos to you for not shooting your engineer a dirty look for slipping like I usually do haha.
If it was one of the usual guys who's really familiar they would've gotten a very dirty look. In this case, a good friend of mine who's run a lot of diesel and was just now breaking into steam, so it was a teaching moment.
@@Hyce777 haha that's fair.
I thing videos with fire are the coolest ones. I would love to see no cut firying up livestream or something. I would be awsome
Might have to do that when I get to the museum :)
As someone who's been a structural firefighter for ages, and therefore quite good at reading fire, what it's doing, what it's going to do, etc. This is something I definitely have to try before I die.. Now to find a coal fired historical railroad that isn't 20 hours away...
You're very good at explaining things! Thoroughly enjoyed this.
Cheers Nick :)
Thanks, Hyce!
I like that you choose to work around these giant bombs... though I guess I am biased due to Derail Valley (which multiplies time by like 100x?)
They are super cool though! Incredibly inefficient/temperamental but cool.
54:58 that is a PERFECT example of how the exhaust draft works
.
fire goes from 0 to 100 back to 0 REALLY quick at low speed LOL
Thank you very much for posting this! I am right now learning how to fire UP #119 and this video definitely helps for how to do it! lately have been making the safety valves go off more than I would care to, so these tips might allow me to "control" 119 better!
Always a fun balance! You'll dial it in. Safeties blowing is better than the opposite - it all just takes time. Best of luck mate!
so glad to see you back on CRRM... you're not only a steam loco engineer/driver/fireman - you're actually "steam"...
I didn't had the oppertunity to operate the real stuff a lot (just here and there a couple of times) but I enjoy my "little" engines a lot an finally, they behave mostly the same to the real thing, but in a "trunk-sized" version.
I love & enjoy your content sad to get you lost in the RRO team, but knowing you more involved as the CRRM, I have to book another flight over to the states some day soon.
cheers mate :)
20:05 that is an incredible amount of pressure! Looks like steam shot a good 20+ feet.
Hey we finally got CoverHyce in a video!
Thanks. Managing the boiler is clearly very important on a steam engine . .
What a great video! Thank you!
What an awesome video! Thanks so much for sharing all of your knowledge in a fun way. Stay safe!
19:19 On our steam locomotives we use fire hoses to fill up the tenders from a hydrant near the depot. There's a small hole in the hose and on hot days i'll angle the water spraying out of the hose leak up into the air so I can also cool myself down with the water haha
That's the vibe right there, hahaha
Thanks for making these instructional videos. I always learn so much!
I'm learning a lot keep the fire men videos coming hopefully I will be firing steam engines soon my self.
Thanks for the fire lesson on coal, I learned allot about coal from video, hope to visit the museum soon, never been. Great video enjoyed watching 👍👍👍👍👍😂🎉
hearing and even seeing how much depth there is in these things, it makes me a little sad that only NOW does the average person have the ability to really freely record their thoughts and share them with others. how much more advanced, or at least easier to teach, would stuff like this have been if we had the ability to communicate so easily then as we do now.
its a small miracle that we even have what we have from then. It's a big part of what makes preservation so important to me. There's a lot of the human experience encoded in these ol iron horses. The only way for us to access that information is to go and DO the things that people of 100 years ago were doing.
I would mist definitely enjoy a video breaking down the science behind steam engines going booom
What kind of chemicals for water treatment do you use out of curiosity.
When Norfolk & Western 611 took on Saluda Grade, she had to be fitted with a special extra-long Saluda sight glass due to the steepness of the grade.
Great video and very informative and easy to understand. Working on becoming a firemen at Cass in the future we can definitely relate to the steep grades lol.
WOOOHOOOOOOOO another hyce video and its one i am really looking forward to it as ive always wondered how fireing a steam locomotive is done
Funny question which of your “ children/ locomotives “ at the museum is your favorite
If I answer that the other ones get mad at me so I can't. lol
For your blowdow valve. The pressure difference and temperature is what makes the water flash
Incredibly informative. Love steam locomotives and these videos are awesome.
Hyce. I love your series man! Makes me want to go to Missoula and get the lazy asses there to restore the locomotive that's somewhat stalled...LOL!
From what I've heard in a video with Neil Vodden (retired Southern Pacific engineer from the 40s and 50s), he explained it like this. I don't want to say the water glass is a luxury, its a very necessary thing. However, to know the true level of water in the boiler with an absolute level of certainty, you use the try cocks (or as he called them, gauge cocks). The water glass is a necessary thing, but if you are trying to check it in a hurry, you don't truly know if everything is functioning absolutely correctly.
That's pretty accurate - I agree, I'd hate to not have the water glasses and they're the go-to.
Someone in the past has mentioned that you can tell when a grate needs more fuel by the color of smoke at the stack. Is that only true for a wood fire?
You certainly can with coal as well! Though, it's an indicator of complete combustion - if you've got an uneven fire for whatever reason, you might get darker smoke while still having a spot that needs coal. If the stack is clear, you're completely combusting and getting the most heat out - but you're going to need more coal right away. Usually you aim for a light haze.
I like the blowdown!
Hyde. Once again thanks heaps for you work. Very enjoyable
Would love to see a video on injectors hope you end up doing it!
You know I really wish that there was a game of some sort that really simulated the Nuances and principles of hand firing an engine shown in this video...… Maybe someone will look into that some day.