GTrax and other steam

[CSX2057]

Now! I am very impressed with Gs-4. I am driving it on Donner Pass from Sparks to Roseville. It was a hard start after I passed Reno. With this new Steam HUD. Those PSI really helped me out alot! Now I can control how much my fire and water boiler pressure. This is sooo much fun!!! I will do SP 4449 tonight on Donner pass. Its amazing!

Made it up to Boca. That new HUD made all the difference.

[OlPaint]

CSX2057

I am guessing that you are driving with AutoFireman OFF? I sure need instructions for running the HUD for Fire and Water control in that Mode. Is there a Donner Pass Scenario for driving the "Daylight" over the Pass? Or are you in Free Roam?

Has anybody heard when the other G-TraX locos (Class S Berkshire and SP&S Northerns) will be reissued on Steam Store as DLC?

OlPaint

[CSX2057]

This was setup for free roam. I thought I had the Automatic fireman turned on, it was off. I didn't notice I was handling it all lol. Oh its simple all you gata do is click on the Coal and the water and you use it how much you need it. But keep your eyes on them, don't let the fire to hot and water boiler to low.

What I did was I started off from Sparks. Stopped at Reno, didn't hesitate to boil up the water because I wasn't sure about the fireman stuff. Train stopped on the uphil, I said hmm. I clicked on the coal it opened, blower on, sander. It was hard starting uphill. I waited till I had a good psi and I started to go smoothly all the way to boca. I'm suprised how this steam handle differently from rw2.

[OlPaint]

CSX2057

The GS-4 is a hungry and thirsty beast especially on long mountain grades. What does one do when the fireman tells the engineer we're getting low on consumables. I cannot find any where instructions how to refuel and rewater the tender. Can you give me a hint what to do when you are about to run out?

For that manner, what fire and water levels must one maintain to keep the steam up? And how does one control those levels in the HUD?

OlPaint

[CSX2057]

CSX2057

The GS-4 is a hungry and thirsty beast especially on long mountain grades. What does one do when the fireman tells the engineer we're getting low on consumables. I cannot find any where instructions how to refuel and rewater the tender. Can you give me a hint what to do when you are about to run out?

For that manner, what fire and water levels must one maintain to keep the steam up? And how does one control those levels in the HUD?

OlPaint

I'm doing a Live stream tonight so you can see how I work around with the HUD. I keep the fire min 70% Water level 65% min, I keep it above min. Someone told me about about the Throttle and the Reverser that helps to maintain speed on a steep grade. Someone help me out here.

Here's the tutorial on how to drive a GTrax Steams. http://www.gtraxsims.com/tut/howtorun.htm

[OlPaint]

CSX2057

Great G-TraX tutorial link!

Ok, as I understand it, you click the HUD icons to toogle the feeding of fuel or water. Of course, the goal is to get the best Steam Pressure, correct? Without popping the relief valve, that is. And the boiler levels to aim for are Fire at 70% min and Water at 65% min.

My Fireman has just offically received his beginners training towards a "Bacholars Degree" in Steam Loco Firing. Well, the Train Master just called us up for a run over Donner Pass. Lets see if we can pull the "DayLight" up the grade without stalling or running out of steam.

Boy, Oh Boy, I wish RSC would get off their duffs and re-post the G-TraX Berk and the Northern as Steam Store DLC.

OlPaint

[arizonachris]

Important, don't keep any brakes on! You will loose steam pressure! I use "running"keeps the steam pressure up! Otherwise, you are just losing steam pressure. Can make a difference on a grade, along with sanding. Keep an eye on that HUD (I hate the new one *sigh*) Oh, and since I'm just a dummy, I use the auto fireman.

[CSX2057]

I never leave that brakes on running position but now that you mentioned I'll give it a try. The fuel is now up to 80% min. Reason why, I did a live streaming last night with the internet in and out I wasn't able to keep up what I was doing. When the fire went below 70% I lost a lot of pressure and water.

Now I know why I lose steam pressure as I climb. With the auto fireman he automatically turns on the injector during a climb and that you lose psi. That's what I did and I said no i've got try to wait till the fire and the blower brings the psi back up then I can pour it. The water in the tender is cold and its cooling off the water in the boiler, you don't wanna do that during a 1.1% grade or higher. You pour it how much you can without losing psi. Its easy now with the new hud. I still need to learn more about steam. Watch your tank, you can lose alot of water and sometimes you don't have a choice. Don't let it get to low otherwise the steam will blow.

[CSX2057]

Here's a great video about how steam works.

[arizonachris]

Daniel, a fantastic video!

[mrennie]

I never leave that brakes on running position but now that you mentioned I'll give it a try. The fuel is now up to 80% min. Reason why, I did a live streaming last night with the internet in and out I wasn't able to keep up what I was doing. When the fire went below 70% I lost a lot of pressure and water.

Now I know why I lose steam pressure as I climb. With the auto fireman he automatically turns on the injector during a climb and that you lose psi. That's what I did and I said no i've got try to wait till the fire and the blower brings the psi back up then I can pour it. The water in the tender is cold and its cooling off the water in the boiler, you don't wanna do that during a 1.1% grade or higher. You pour it how much you can without losing psi. Its easy now with the new hud. I still need to learn more about steam. Watch your tank, you can lose alot of water and sometimes you don't have a choice. Don't let it get to low otherwise the steam will blow.

There are several points that will help you to keep up the boiler pressure.

1. Find out what is the ideal fire mass. RW engine blueprints specify two values - one is the "idle" fire mass, which is what you start with at the beginning of a scenario, and the other is "ideal" fire mass, which is the one that is the hottest (and therefore makes the most steam). The ideal fire mass is usually higher than the idle mass. For example, in the Consolidation it's 650lbs. What RW is simulating is that if you have less coal in the fire, there is too little to cover the grate, too much and it smothers the fire (oxygen can't reach all of the hot coal, unburnt coal goes up the stack).

2. When moving, open the dampers - RW does simulate the effect of supplying the fire with more air. When stationary, it's better to open the blower, to draw more air through, but that does use steam from the boiler.

3. Use the injectors frequently to keep the water level up above about 85%. With pick-up injectors, they use steam to ram the water into the evaporator section of the boiler, through a one-way "clack" valve. The injectors actually mix the steam with the water coming up from the tender and this heats before it goes into the boiler. It doesn't go in cold. Also, some steam engines (more modern than my Consolidation) had pre-heaters (usually located near the front) that used exhaust steam to further heat the water before it went into the boiler.

When moving, it's best to use the exhaust injector, because it makes use of the exhaust steam rather than steam that's bled off, through the steam turret, from the boiler. When stationary, as there's not much exhaust steam, it's better to use the live injector, which uses up more steam (but it doesn't matter, as the boiler pressure is going to rise anyway when stationary).

4. It's of paramount importance to understand how to use the regulator and cut-off properly. In very simple terms, when starting off, you need full reverser and open the throttle as necessary, a little bit at first to avoid wheelslip. The faster you go, the more you should "hook up" the reverser. This reduces the amount of time that the valves admit steam to the cylinders (hence it's called the "cut-off"). When the steam is cut-off, it still expands, and it's the expansive force that pushes the piston. The faster you, go the more efficient it is to use the expansive force. Also, if you don't hook-up, the back pressure in the cylinder will increase as you go faster, so you need to reduce the quantity of steam in the cylinder on each stroke. As you hook-up, you usually need to compensate by opening the throttle wider, to continue accelerating.

When you need to accelerate when you're going slowly, you can push the reverser further forward to increase the pressure in the cylinders, but you have to remember to hook up again when speed increases. Otherwise that same pressure turns into back pressure and limits how fast the pistons can go back and forth, and therefore limit your speed.

5. As you go faster, more air is drawn (or sucked) through the firebox because of the greater amount of exhaust creating the vacuum in the smokebox, and more air is pushed in through the open damper door (in the front of the ash pan, below the grate).


The auto-fireman loses pressure for two reasons. The first is that he lets the water level go down too far, leaving too much space above the water - for the same amount of evaporated water (steam), more volume equals less pressure. The second reason is that he's bad at keeping the fire mass at the right level. However, as bpetit discovered recently, if you open the damper (the auto-fireman won't do it - you have to do it for him), then for some unknown reason, he puts more coal on the fire and gets it to the ideal level!

Another thing I discovered is that even if you run the loco really badly, if you have the auto-fireman enabled, then no matter what you do, the boiler pressure will never go below 65% of its maximum - that's hard-coded. You can put the reverser at maximum. open the throttle wide, and the pressure will not go below 65%.

About the running position - this is meant to keep the pressure in the train line from dropping, so as to avoid an unintentional brake application (which happens if the triple valve in the cars's brake system senses that the train line / brake pipe pressure is lower than the pressure in the auxiliary reservoirs).

[robbit]

great Info! Thanks!

[mrennie]

There's a lot more I could mention. For example, another advantage of hooking up the reverser is that less steam enters the cylinders on each stroke, so more stays in the boiler, helping to build up the pressure. On the other hand, if you still want to accelerate (and hooking up does allow you to accelerate because the pistons can go back and forth faster before they reach the exhaust, or back pressure, limit again, and it avoids wasting steam by pushing it out of the exhaust before it's even had a chance to fully expand), you have to open the throttle wider, which means more steam leaving the boiler. Also, there are more piston strokes per second which means more steam leaving the boiler in a given amount of time. But then the exhaust is stronger, the fire gets hotter, more hot air is drawn through the tubes to boil the water, so you get a faster rate of steam generation. It gets quite complicated. Locomotive engineers were always trying to find ways to use the steam more efficiently (hence compound locos that used the exhaust steam from the high-pressure cylinders to feed lower-pressure cylinders, and then superheated locos that used exhaust steam to superheat, and further dry out, the steam from the boiler), and to generate enough steam to feed the cylinders, which led to bigger boilers, and especially bigger (longer and wider) fireboxes and grates, that led to the bigger trailing trucks to support them.

I've never run a real steam loco, but I've spent a lot of time reading technical books and articles on steam locomotive design. It helped me a lot when it came to understanding the engine and simulation blueprints in RW. It also gave me a much greater appreciation for just how good RW is (now anyway) at simulating steam locomotives. It's not perfect, there are things it leaves out, but they are mostly minor things. I suspect that a lot of the good things in the simulation go unnoticed by many people, and I think it might be because you would only notice them if you already knew what to look out for. So my recommendation, to get more out of RW, is to read up on how things work in real life (mind you, on the negative side, it'll also make you more aware of what it doesn't do well ... can't have everything).

[CSX2057]

The auto-fireman loses pressure for two reasons. The first is that he lets the water level go down too far, leaving too much space above the water - for the same amount of evaporated water (steam), more volume equals less pressure. The second reason is that he's bad at keeping the fire mass at the right level. However, as bpetit discovered recently, if you open the damper (the auto-fireman won't do it - you have to do it for him), then for some unknown reason, he puts more coal on the fire and gets it to the ideal level!

Another thing I discovered is that even if you run the loco really badly, if you have the auto-fireman enabled, then no matter what you do, the boiler pressure will never go below 65% of its maximum - that's hard-coded. You can put the reverser at maximum. open the throttle wide, and the pressure will not go below 65%.

About the running position - this is meant to keep the pressure in the train line from dropping, so as to avoid an unintentional brake application (which happens if the triple valve in the cars's brake system senses that the train line / brake pipe pressure is lower than the pressure in the auxiliary reservoirs).

Great info!

No wonder why when I had auto fireman on. I was losing everything! I also notice in the coal lvl was going below 70% I was losing pressure. One other thing I would like to know. I downloaded the Challenger Performance upgrade, I've been testing out these steam locos to see how many cars can they pull. On this challenger there were issue no, 2 issues. 1 no matter how much pressure i'm giving like 60% regulator, umm I think 50% reverser, the steam starts losing controls. The wheels kept slipping alot. When I turned on the sander it didn't help. Maybe I was pulling to many cars or was I giving to much?

[mrennie]

One other thing I would like to know. I downloaded the Challenger Performance upgrade, I've been testing out these steam locos to see how many cars can they pull. On this challenger there were issue no, 2 issues. 1 no matter how much pressure i'm giving like 60% regulator, umm I think 50% reverser, the steam starts losing controls. The wheels kept slipping alot. When I turned on the sander it didn't help. Maybe I was pulling to many cars or was I giving to much?

I don't have the Challenger, but at a guess, considering how powerful it was, 60% throttle and 50% reverser sounds like too much, if you're talking about starting from a standstill. Even with the Consolidation, which is far less powerful, you have to be gentle with the throttle when starting off, especially in rain or snow, and use the sanders right from the beginning.