Atomic Systems

Running the "Historic Freight" scenario on Siegen to Hagen last night, I discovered the BR52 steam loco has a huge physics issue. Essentially, the boiler pressure never drops below maximum no matter how hard you work the loco. At one point I was really thrashing it, steam consumption more than three times the production rate and the injectors putting water in the boiler, never dropped below 10.5 bar. This ruins what is otherwise a tremendous looking and sounding (when it doesn't drop out) loco. The whole point of driving a steam loco is to balance the power requirements with what the boiler can deliver or you might as well be driving a diesel. This is actually worse than the simplified steam physics used on some of the early Trainz steamers.

Has anyone else noticed this or emailed RSC about it? If not, then I'll drop a line to support as two things need sorting... 1. Why the boiler pressure never drops and 2. Why there is such a huge imbalance between the steam being produced and the amount required (even standing still with blower off and brake in running there was still more steam being consumed than created!). Of course it could be that (1) was a fudge to get round (2), but either way the numbers need revisiting to give a proper performance from the loco.

I have already emailed RS.com in relation to noticing the opposite issue with the RS.com V2 the other day, which seems to have a capped pressure that you cannot go over but without a safety valve or some other way of reducing the production/consumption difference.

If you've done the usual corrupt content troubleshooting already, send your email. I don't get why people spend so much time faffing around writing forum posts saying "does anybody else have this" when they could spend exactly the same amount of time sending an email to support. Even if you don't get a human response it's still got a lot more chance of being read by somebody who can do something about it.

Vern: 10 bar is only 145 psi, which is very low for a large 1930s/40s design. This could simply be the "collar" (opposite of cap) that is always used when auto-fireman is on, combined with a completely different bug which *is* specific to the BR52. Try closing the dampers on a different loco and drive that hard - you'll find that the same minimum limit is almost always present.

The other bug is that the cutoff doesn't make the BR52 more efficient as it should do. This will rapidly cause the boiler pressure to drop to the collar if you drive it normally. *That* bug, if it still exists in RW3, should be reported to RSC.

Thanks Kroma, I didn't know about the collar, it could be I reached that. Exactly why I posted first, Mr Transadelaide, before firing off an email, so maybe keep the snarky comments to yourself in future?

It seems there is still a bug, just a different bug. Loss of steam pressure should result in reduced performance followed by a stall, which is going to happen sooner rather than later with the '52's voracious appetite for steam.

transadelaide wrote: I don't get why people spend so much time faffing around writing forum posts saying "does anybody else have this" when they could spend exactly the same amount of time sending an email to support. Even if you don't get a human response it's still got a lot more chance of being read by somebody who can do something about it.

I think it's a good idea to sound out other people's experience before sending off email to support; it's part of investigating the problem. Without asking, how do I know that my "bug" is an issue with TS rather than a silly mistake on my part, or a well known issue that's been reported hundreds of times?

Hi Vern,

I didn't yet e-mail RS.com about this issue but I noticed it too -- the BR52 drives like a Diesel engine through this scenario! (and it doesn't have many other scenarios unfortunately; it could be a great loco for the "Bringing out the oldies" scenario on the "Seebergbahn"...)

Anyway, I don't remember what the boiler pressure was when starting out in the scenario. But I did notice that I could drive it like a diesel loco, and boiler pressure never drops below 10.5 Bar, even though I'm using 3 times more steam than I'm generating!

The boiler pressure should drop, really low, and the loco should stall, until I can build up more pressure again. That's the way it happens on all the other steam engines, "collar" or no "collar" ... I use more steam than I generate, consistently.

So whatever the exact bug is, there is a bug in this loco's physics.

As soon as that is fixed, I'd love to compare the actual power that this loco can deliver to some of the British steam engine

--Tim

Well, the BR52 should be quite a strong engine but with a low top speed - it predates the otherwise similar BR Standard type, which has similar haulage capacity but was capable of greater speeds. A more direct comparison would be to the WD Austerity 2-10-0.

The Germans did have a heavier 2-10-0 type, the BR42, with three cylinders and a heavier axle loading, which was a Kriegslok version of the BR40 just as the BR52 was of the BR50. I don't think there was ever a direct equivalent to the 40 or 42 in Britain.