Little and Often. London, Midland, and Scottish railways steam fireman training video. Uploaded for use as a training aid. All rights owned by Railfims Ltd.
Gosh I didn’t realise it was so complicated and involved. Fascinating video. I’ll be looking out for the colour of the smoke on the steam trains at my local heritage railway, the GCR
Heh maybe so. But these guys don't just have the training but a lot of experience as well. The firemen on heritage roads don't have the advantage of experience. But what do I know; I thought getting my BBQ going was hard...
Never fired a loco with the front damper open, except for going tender first. As for the little and often worked only when the loco was in tip top shape. in reality this method was rarely used.
I was a b.r.fireman.thid is a true description of firing.however not all locomotives were the same even the same class.i.e jubilee s.6 p some would steam better with a bi one under the door .p.s.best job I ever had I my live life.
The firehole flap. The opening is called the firehole and the flap allows the fireman a better view of the fire than a fully open firehole as the glare from the fire is significantly reduced.
"Here, I've found a lump of coal." "Jolly good. The very thing we're looking for. Be careful not to drop it on your foot." "What, me drop a great, heavy lump of coal on my foot?...Ooh!" "Silly duffer."
I was a fireman at kingmoor carlisle they demonstrate control fireing 6 every 2 mins regarding black smoke you did not look for that also you kept the firebox doors close the 2 main things when fireing oh bye the way you fired left handed you kept your eye on the steam guage and also the water guage if you were putting coal in the fire box you knocked off the water injectors the idea was you were not putting cold water and coal at the same time the scot engines had a long fire box so you put 4 one side 4 the other
I'm not exactly sure, but it's evidently something both embarrassing and well-known to the company, that they're trying to be tactful about. Honestly, it's absolutely *exemplary* labour relations to include a bit like that in the film, and sadly something you'd never see in any training video today - it's a way of indirectly saying, to the working men who'd be shown this film, that the boffins and bean-counters who wrote it do understand what life is actually like on the foot-plate, that accidents do happen even to the best of us, that ideal theory is hard to always apply under challengingly non-ideal conditions. It's a humanising moment of briefly dropping the clipped formality, to basically show that the management are reasonable, decent people* who won't fire you if you've just had one bad day and that it's safe, for example, to approach them and tell them if you've accidentally bent the baffle plate, so it can be repaired. This film was presumably made back in the pre-war days when the phrase "we're all in this together" actually had at least *some* meaning. *At least, that's the impression they're trying to give; just exactly how true it really was, I couldn't say.
He may have just gone off script and used the "well" to pause and find his place again. Then the editor didn't bother cutting out thay little slip. Just a theory; I don't really know.
This is excellent! I've watched this time and time again, and I still enjoy it. I regret that I will probably never fire a steam engine, though it would surely be exiting (and hard work as well), but that's not the point. The point is, that all the skill and work that was necessary to run these "simple" engines efficiently, was there. And not only the firemen and the drivers, but all the maintenance people too! Hats off to those doing it, and to the system for running it all and doing everything in the most economical way possible, if a steam engine can ever be called economical, which it probably can't. But that was what they had in those days. And they really tried to make the best out of it. I'm impressed. 🙂
A steam engine can be called economical - but you must judge historically, and not from the point of view of today. Steam was a great progress compared to horses, and much more economical.
before fusbile plugs were "invented" if the firebox was uncovered the crown would melt and cause sudden evaporation drastically increasing the boiler pressure and causing boiler explosion
They experimented a little with oil burning in the UK but it never took off. We had large reserves of high-quality coal, none of the really long freight runs you get in the US and trains small enough that a guy could fire the locomotive with a shovel.
