What is the day activity cycle of a steam RR engine?

Question

How /when fire started? when coal up? When ashes dumped? What activities are done at start of day? At end of day?

Answer 1

Steam engines took hours to start (museums typically take ~4 hours), so the mainline railroads never dropped the fire except for their 92 day inspection, and even then it could take over a day for the engine to cool enough to go inside the firebox and inspect.   Given that they take a tremendous amount of energy to start, and all that boiler heat is wasted on shutdown, this saved energy too.

Answer 2

Usually a fire lighter would light the fire about 2 hours or so before the loco is due to go on duty. He would place a lit paraffin rag in the firebox and add some timber as kindling and once that fire was going, add a little coal, then more as that caught to build up the fire. . Once the loco had built up steam pressure and the rostered river and fireman had taken over and oiled and checked the machine, it would move to the coaling stage, or automatic coaler where the fireman would taken on a load of fuel. Ashe created during the journey wall fall into an ashpan, - raked through by the fireman on older locos, automatically by rocking the grate in more modern ones. At the end of the day the loco would be moved to the ashpit where the ashpan would be opened and ash emptied. At he same time, ashpit workeers would open the firebox door and clean out the large amount of ash that would have accumulated in the bottom of the smoke box - usually with a shovel.

Answer 3

Duty turns normally begin in the early hours. Locomotives in working order are fired up by crews known as 'P&D Men', the 'P&D' standing for 'preparation and disposal'. Usually younger men in training for the footplate.

A fire is made up by first putting pieces of wood into the firebox in a square formation (the 'box'), then placing coal around this, then soaking pieces of rag or cotton waste in paraffin on a shovel and setting them alight. When well alight the bundle of rags is placed into the firebox, then more pieces of wood placed on top.

Then the coal is added, slowly at first so that the boiler heats up evenly.

A small tank engine can take 3-4 hours to raise steam and a bigger engine, the best part of a day.

...when the engine has enough pressure in the boiler to move (say 150psi) it will be shunted out of the shed and coal and water replenished if needed.

In the meantime the main line crews have booked on and will be boarding their engines, checking their duty rosters, giving the loco the once-over before commencing the daily working.

Locos are often kept in steam for several days before returning to the shed for the fire to be dropped and raked out, and the smokebox cleared of ash. Again this is the task of the 'P&D' men.

Every week a  loco has a boiler wash-out which consists of sending water at high pressure through the boiler to dislodge any limescale.

Prior to commencing duty the engine will be checked over for any minor repairs and then cleaned.

At least, that's how it was in the days of steam, and still today on the Heritage Railways.