How Do You Start a Steam Engine? - A Rough Guide 

Find your nearest heritage railway (or railroad, I suppose) and see about volunteering if it's near enough for you to regularly go over

Hi there, with locomotives you don't need a flywheel as you have multiple cylinders, at least 2 but more powerful locomotives can have 3 or 4. With a 2-cylinder loco the wheels are offset by 90 degrees so when one piston is at the end of it's travel, the other is in the middle of theirs so can get the locomotive moving. It is however possible to centre the locomotive and have all the inlet ports closed meaning you have to roll back and start again. Un-rebuilt Bulleid light pacifics e.g. Wadebridge, Manston etc are prone to this partly due to the chain drive valve gear being so finely balanced, which is one of the reasons why the class were rebuilt.

I believe 45596 is a Lms black 5

@@sovietskye7473 I'm afraid not. She's a Jubilee. A sort of hybrid of the Black 5 and the Patriot class. Here's a simple-ish way to tell: the splashers on the running board. Black 5s odn't have them while Jubilees do. Sounds nerdy but once you see it you can't unsee it.

@@rockacraig5653 thanks for letting me know

@@sovietskye7473 No problem.

Hi David, so the steam pistons are reliant on steam being compressible. When everything is nice and warm, not a problem you can crack on as normal. However, first thing in the morning everything is cold, so when the steam enters the steam chest and cylinders, the steam will cool creating water, which can't be compressed and has the potential to cause a lot of damage. The solution is to open drains at the bottom of the cylinder which will allow the driver to force any water out of the cylinders. Once the locomotive has moved for a little bit and the steam has been emitted into the cylinders long enough to warm up the surfaces, the driver can close the drains and it's back to business as normal. You may also find that the drains will be open when moving off after a locomotive has been at a stand for a while.

@@WillStratford So, about how long do the cylinder drains have to be left open until the cylinders warm up?

Yes yes you did

Called Dave during that gala weekend!

1 thing wrong about what you said Thomas was, whilst the gala was on, Thomas was called Dave!

It's already used for cleaning etc around the loco, so being ready to hand it's easier to use. And you wouldn't even use 1L to soak the rags so it's not that expensive.....

You want the fire under the brick arch at the front of the box as this has the benifit of reducing smoke back onto the footplate when you have no blower to create a draft and it also allows most of the heat to go into the boiler. If you had the fire in the middle of the box a lot of that heat would be wasted. Also on locomotives the back of the fire box is the bit closest to the firehole door and the front it the bit closest to the front of the locomotive :D

Dave*

Cylinder drain cocks, they let out excess water and steam from the cylinders.

@@invisibleman4827 Cheers!