Not enough speed with GWR King

[Rockdoc2174]

The dampers are used to regulate the amount of air passing into the firebox and can be used to balance steam production and usage. The blower is used to maintain the draught through the boiler when the regulator is closed so that a low-level of steam production is maintained but, more importantly, so that the gases from the firebox don't reach a positive pressure and blow back into the cab. On the King, the blower is opened/closed with N/Shift+N and the damper with M/Shift+M. I ran Return of the King today and found that setting both about half open according to the display on the manual fireman inset worked best. As with a real engine, moving the damper doesn't have an immediate effect so you have to make a change and then see what happens about 10s afterwards.

The Mk1 coaches in that scenario run a lot more freely than the GWR coaches in the other scenarios and I could comfortably reach 75mph and cruise at 65mph with the regulator at 100% and the cut-off at about 7%. I kept the fire-mass at about 950lb and the water level at about 0.85.

Keith

[Makeone]

Ï just made from Didcot to downwards of Filton Jnc and then sbhh when it tried to load Bristol area on Stuarts fine Western Rails. I used RSC King on this run and those celestory coaches, 8 of them. Top speed that i was able to maintain was somewhere around 65mph on mostly level ground. That thing really sucks that water though, just before the crash, i had about 250 gallons remaining in tender plus some 7t of coal, so it really has an appetite, that's for sure. One problem that was witnessing was that those injectors would stay open all the time, and i didn't hit their buttons on keyboard, altho i did swicthed between F4 and F3/5 modes quite often (WR, as many other routes have been ridding the coding that threws a swicth in front of and train causing derailing at speed.) as it's actually easier to control firing controls from F4 display. I wonder if RSC's King has bigger than life boiler because the waterlevel doesn't move much, but injector (or 's) does make the water leave the tender at 1-2 gallons per second.

And one other thing, but were GWR orginally at right side runner or why King (atleast) have it's driver on right hand side of the cab? Or was it so by desing?

[Trev123]

When I drive the King in manual mode, I open up the damper and blower to full and leave them there. Next I put the reverser on full forward. Let off the brakes and slowly applie the regulator. If in career mode don't applie to much as you will get wheel slip. I slowly increase the regulator to 100% and at the same time bring back the reverser so that I'm not using more steam than is being generated. Acceleration is not that great and takes about 20 miles to get up too 66 mph.

[stuart666]

GWR always had the driver on the right side of the cab. In fact many of the original pre grouping railway companies did as well (Flying Scotsman when built was to be driven from the right side of the cab I gather) but everyone else moved to left side of the cab, and GWR just did things their own way. So yeah, that is right.

I had a prat around with this on Saturday. I dont really have much time to put into this much now, but I can get 7 carriages up to 75-80 on the flat, which I dont think is very far wrong. Id prefer to stretch it to 90mph, but that takes time I dont really feel able to put aside at the moment. I will say from experiments the limitation on speed appears to be the speed v traction csv. May be interesting to experiment by putting Kevs DSV for the King into the RSC one and see if that helps the high speeds.

Other than that, I just reduced steam production from 45000lbs per hour, to 26000lbs per hour (the maximum possible on prewar kings). Im undecided on whether that was a good idea. On the one hand it did quieten the boiler down, so you are not continually letting off at the pressure valve. But you rarely even come close to 26000lbs anyway, so it could perhaps do with being upped tot he mid 30s so you can actually get close to real steam production.

These are tweaks in any case. I think in many ways its one of the nicest locos RSC have done. Just needs a workover on some areas thats all.

Re Western rails, yeah, Bristol probably was a mistake, and can only really be done on fairly new machines (the shadows even slow my machine down!). Best advice is turn shadows off, and draw distance too.