How to shutdown a steam locomotive?

Is there a way to shut down a steam locomotive in trainz 12? if there isn't, is there a way to make them appear to be shut down?
 
Is there a way to shut down a steam locomotive in trainz 12? if there isn't, is there a way to make them appear to be shut down?

You can make a clone of a locomotive you want to shut down, delete the engine sound and the smoke on the cloned locomotive, place the cloned locomotive on the session you want to use it on and it will look shutdown.
 
Ya know - that's an interesting question.

In the real world how do you turn a steam engine off (go from operational to cold iron). It can't possibly be just a matter of not shoveling any more coal in or turning off the fuel oil valve. A steam engine is a much more complex and sophisticated hunk of iron then most folks realize. I'd be very interested in any retired engineers/firemen who would like to comment.

Thanks,

Ben
 
I found this from trainorders.com

"Fill the boiler. Not completely full, but up to the very top of the water glass. Start planning early on this as you never want to put too much cold water into a boiler quickly as the temperature change is hard on the boiler. Once the glass is full, the fire can be extinguished or banked. Overnight, the boiler which you left full will be down about 4 to 6 inches, maybe more, because as the boiler cools off the volume of water will shrink. If you had left the engine with low water, you may not see any in the glass when you show up next morning, and will have to assume the crown sheet is bare.

Also, you don't generally dump the coal fire before putting her away for the night. Rather, you clean the fire of ash, dump the ashpan (not the fire on the grate), then build up a bank of coals burning gently on the back of the grate and cover the front half of the grate with a thin layer of coal. The bank will keep the engine warm and quickly give you a fire in the morning."


Here is some more details: http://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?10,2445762
 
That's for shutting a loco down for the night. I took the shop your when I rode the Durango & Silverton and the gent that gave the tour mentioned how they did it and its almost word for word what you mentioned.

What I was asking about is how do you completely shut a steam loco down. All the way to cold iron for major repairs that can not be done to a loco with any fire in it whatsoever.

Ben
 
In my day I worked on hand fired coal steam locos. We let the fire die down, the steam drop back, then drive over a pit and 'dropped the fire'. This was done by first opening the ash hoppers beneath the firebox and then lowering a section of the firebox grate called the drop grate. Then using the rake, raking the remaining fire into the ash hoppers and into the pit. This could be extremely hot work as we had some large hand fired coal burners.
At the same time injectors were left on so as to ensure the boiler was full but leaving enough steam to move the loco to the shed.
Although the fire was removed the firebox metal and boiler were still hot and they took many hours to cool down. During this time they often leaked steam through the snifter valves and other places hence the need to have the boiler water up when you dropped the fire, as the water could still go down a bit until it got cool. Next day they were as dead as a dodo.

In New Zealand all steam locos were completely shut down like this about once every 14 days where the boiler would be given a washout [to remove scale] and the tubes cleaned of soot and ash build up.
The larger locos like Ka's, Kb's had a blow down valve fitted which could be used while travelling to blow and clean out scale which lengthened the time between washouts. These blow down valves were later fitted to the Ja's as well. Cheers
 
Last edited:
What I was asking about is how do you completely shut a steam loco down. All the way to cold iron for major repairs that can not be done to a loco with any fire in it whatsoever.

I wouldn't be surprised if the Tennessee Valley Railroad Museum banks their steamers on Saturday night since they run on the weekends. However, I'm not certain if they let the fire burn out Sunday night or bank it for the rest of the week. On the extended shop tour I took during the first Railfest, Mr. Andrews told us about how they would get complaints from the neighbors of the East Chattanooga Station at, like 2 or 4 in the morning, of the noise of whistles and bells ringing while the locomotives move around the yard, getting ready for the first trip of the day. However, I do know that at the theme park Dollywood, the crew of the Dollywood Express banks the fire every night, since the train is steam-powered every day.
 
If there are any old loco men out there they will say I missed the important bits like shut off the injectors, turn off the blower, turn off the lubricator, centre the reversing lever, ensure the regulator is shut and put the hand brake on, hard.
 
just a few points of interest around the subject -

There are fusable plugs inside the fire boxes made of lead and other suitable materials to protect the boilers from damage or explosion in case of low water levels.These plugs will melt at certain temperatures and steam will blow out the fire to protect the boiler plates.

Some drivers were not the fireman's friends because they would blow out the firemans hard work through the exhaust by excessive use of the regulator and reverser, either through lack of operating skills or being spitefull.

When locomotives are placed 'cold' or 'dead' for either scheduled or non-scheduled maintenace the fitter or worker should make certain there is no more steam in the boiler and not take for granted that the pressure gauge is correct when indicating zero.
1 PSI of steam is enough to blow a person sky high and burn you badly when working on live equipment .
Some devices and equipment like the blowdown cock stay 'live' when there is still pressure in a boiler because they are mounted directly on the boiler without a means of shutting off steam pressure before work.

There are 'washout plugs' on boilers that are screwed out for testing or maintenance . Should the reverser or regulator not be in mid gear and water pressure is admitted to the 'dead' or 'cold' boiler through washout hose pipes screwed into the washout plug holes the locomotive will run away if not scotched with scotch blocks because of water pressure at the pistons.
I have seen some of these things that happened.
 
Is there a way to shut down a steam locomotive in trainz 12? if there isn't, is there a way to make them appear to be shut down?

My steam locos can be shut down in surveyor mode by activating the "?" and then mark the "Staella av" option. In driver mode you activate "ctrl-mouse right click" and then mark "Staella av" option. If doing this, I simulate a complete "shut-down" of the steam loco (Appr 4 minutes phase) resulting in :

no sound,no smoke,no driver and no coalman.

In the shut down mode, you can tow the vehicle.
If you want to "Power up" the steam loco again unmark the "Staella av" option and wait for around 4 minutes and then the steam loco
will be up running again.

You can test this feature by visiting my homepage:

www.jocomms.webs.com

and download one of the steam locos.

/Janne
PS. I have also implemented this feature on some diesel vehicles.
 
How do I delete the smoke and engineound?

To start/stop smoke you use below method in the script library:
PostMessage(me,"pfx","-16-17-3",0); //smoke off
PostMessage(me,"pfx","+16",0); // smoke on

To start/stop Engine sound it is much more complicated. I have done it
by controlling the sound in my GS file. But, then you also have to define your
own sound file.

Anyway, it is lots of programming.....
 
How do I delete the smoke and engineound?
The guidance given by PendennisCastle requires editing the locomotive asset's config.txt file. The enginesound tag is a single line item. SmokeX (where X is an integer number of any number of digits) is a container and includes all lines up to the "}" marking the end of that container. Most steam locos have multiple smoke containers - from a couple up to several dozen.

Some steam locos also have tags for exhaust smoke set up similar to diesel locos with the following tags:
smoke_fastlife
smoke_fastspeed
smoke_height
smoke_random
smoke_shade
smoke_slowlife
These are all single line tags and can just be deleted.

The "engine" tag with a 1 indicates his vehicle is powered. Changing it to 0 will make it non powered. It has some side effects and might effect the horn sound and interior behaviors.

A custom script file for the loco may also cause a problem and if it does you might be able to delete the script and class tags. For some locos those might cause other problems. So I'd you suggest you do as little as necessary to the config to get the results you need.

Note: All of the above fixes are permanent. The cloned copy is a dead engine - forever.

There are other ways to make a loco appear dead that can be done and undone in a session thru scripting as vovven47 has done with his locos. Shutting down all the smoke effects (similar to his post above) is a pretty easy scripting task. But unfortunately we can't turn off the engine sounds in a similar way when an ordinary enginesound asset is used. In TANE we can now swap out the enginespec asset used by the loco in realtime but we can't do the same with the enginesound asset.

Running engine sounds (exhaust cuffs) thru scripting is possible. Probably that's what vovven47 is talking about. Some of Ben Neal's locos use a script that has this ability. I wrote one to help Ben out with the concept back in TRS06. But N3V has since determined that this is not proper use of scripting. In TS12 N3V intentionally broke the playsounds() method that was used to do most of this sound work. While it did make it a bit more difficult - it didn't make it impossible.

Bob Pearson
 
Last edited:
For your info:
My script for switching on/off smoke/sound is also working for TANE and buildno 4.3.
I have uploaded some locos for TANE and buildno 4.3 on my homesite:

www.jocomms.webs.com

This is my way of implementing the features and, of course, there may be other ways......


A few years ago, I was explaining how to interface my script:

http://forums.auran.com/trainz/showthread.php?111024-Script-to-mute-engine-and-smoke-steam-effects

As I am writing in the post above:

1. You have to define some new attachment pointers. If it is not your loco,
you can set up the missing a.xxx pointers with PevSoft AttachmentMaker program.

2. Change the smoke containers positions in the config file, so they follow the way my script wants.

3. Create your own customized sound file or use mine.

Contact me, if anyone is interested.
I have made some changes in the config file since then!

Anyway, I have from time to time been considering using my script to interface another steam loco, that is not
developped by me.
Suggestions?


Of course, I must have allowance from the loco creator doing this.
And, is it possible or not after investigation?


NB. On my homesite there also are a few US/Canadian(?) dieselengines having these features.


/Janne
 
Thanks. I'll try. It's for a movie where dieselization is taking over the Wabash Railroad. I'm still debating if I should make the locomotives going to scrap look like they're shut down or if they are being forced to the scrap yard
 
Back
Top