Hey, how come wenne i drive my steam train,.. it slows down to a stall and begins to reverse? How do i remedy this? And how to do i get my PSI up and reach top speeds, cus at the moment i am not going very fast at all. And what is does the Hg (mercury) indicator for? what does it mean?
Sounds to me like you're treating the reverser like you would a modern diesel or electric, this is the first mistake most people (including myself) make when trying their hand at steam in the game. In a modern loco the reverser goes directly to 100% forward or 100% back and of course neutral, with steam you're reverser is used in conjunction with the (for want of a better term) power handle, you have to feed in the reverser slowly, the higher the percentage the more torque you'll get but less speed (i know I'm going to get shredded for my explanation but it works for me, sorry purists!) Try this, when you pull away give it about 60% reverser (forward or backward depending on which way your loco is facing of course). Feed in the power handle gently once your brakes are fully released and you'll start pulling away and you're speed will steadily start increasing. When you notice the speed flattening out don't increase the throttle any more start slowly decreasing the reverser, for a good head of steam to speed ratio you want the reverser steadily reduced to around 30% ish and the power handle can then be adjusted up or down a bit depending on where you're at in relation to your track speed limits. All the time keep watching the steam pressure gauge (I recommend the full HUD view) try and keep it in the green as much as you can and also don't overdo the water, try and keep it around 70% full but no more, remember too much water will reduce your amount of steam and steam is what you need to power the pistons from here on out it's a juggling/balancing act between the reverser, the throttle, the brakes, whilst keeping an eye on the steam pressure and coal level. I am very much at the lower end of novice scale when it comes to steam but I've found the above works 'mostly' for me, I can still get in to trouble on long gradients or if my train is long and heavy but mostly I'll get a good balance and an enjoyable little run. All the corrections to what I'm doing wrong incoming..
Hello shang#7390, welcome to the world of steam. There are two key controls to make your steam loco run: the regulator and the reverser. The regulator controls the pressure of the steam going into the cylinders and the reverser controls the valve gear. At it's simplest the reverser controls whether you go forward and backwards, but most of the time you use it to control for how much of the piston stroke steam is going into the cylinder. This is known as the amount of cut-off. At 100% cut-off, steam is going in for the full piston stroke, at 30% cut-off it's going in for just under 1/3 of the stroke. You get max power by full regulator and full reverser, but you can't do this for long at anything other than very low speed. There are two reasons for this: you use large amounts of steam which will soon drop the boiler pressure and the large amount of steam in the cylinders can't exhaust fast enough so you get back pressure on the piston which slows you down. To start, put your reverser into the max position and open the regulator. As you start to speed up reduce the reverser and possibly the regulator. At high speed you may have as little as 15% reverser. The exact amount of regulator and reverser will depend on weight of train, gradient etc, but in time you'll learn what's right. You create steam (and hence pressure) by having a big hot fire, so put coal on until its about 80% of max size, by moving the loco which creates an exhaust blast that fans the fire, or by opening the blower which fans the fire without the loco moving. You use steam by moving the loco, opening the cylinder cocks, by adding cold water to your boiler and by using any live steam auxiliary equipment like the live injectors and brake equipment. The Hg (mercury) refers to the amount of vacuum in your brake pipes and it's the height of mercury (in mm) that would be sucked up a vertical tube if your brake pipe was connected to it. The bigger the number the more your brakes are released. 0mm Hg means breaks fully applied. There are finer details I've left out, but this should get you going and you can then work out/find out the rest as your skill grows.
