s282 the boiler always explodes.

[Degrease (RUS)]

s282 the boiler always explodes.
the water level on the boiler disappears after a while, it becomes unclear whether it is full or empty.
I do a good job of blowing out the cylinders.

By the way, the exact same glitch was in the previous version, the level of the boiler is not clear at all what it showed.

[schutt]

Well you got to watch it and keep it in the window then its fine. And if your in standard mode you can cheat with the f4 view: verry clear to see if water is empty or full there, just take a quick lock at the f4 view and go back to normal play. So the boiler does not always explode, in fact far from it. If you watch the water lvl it does fine. It is just not as easy to drive as the other engines, if you dont like it you can still play in comfort mode where the damage is disabled.

The game is fine, retaining some difficulty is ok. Just dont play on hardmode if you dont want hardmode, thats all. The hardmode is by far not challanging enough anyways.

[Pops]

A few post mention the water in the tender runs dry a lot quicker than you would expect. Use the F4 menu to determine the level of the boiler high or low if you are unsure

https://steamcommunity.com/app/588030/discussions/1/3800524254171212534/

https://steamcommunity.com/app/588030/discussions/0/3800524658156119084/

[Primus]

It is your boiler running dry that causes the explosion. Looking at the water observation tube in the cab , it is sometimes hard to tell if it is empty or full. But if you'll notice, the color of the glass is bluish grey when full, and rust brown when empty. It took me a while to get used to it but now it is no problem to me.

[darkSol]

I'm having the exact same issue, and I've watched Squirrel's video where he explains the water level will change with elevation change, so it will look full when downhill, and empty while uphill, but for me it's blowing up every time I go down hill (at least this is what seems to be the case). I never know how much is actually in it by looking at the glass, it shows full. In the video he says don't touch the water amount until you're on level ground, but I blow up before I ever reach level ground. It doesn't make sense that I should need to keep filling it and emptying it every time I go up or downhill to keep it in the glass (that's not how it should be working as I understand it), and that goes against the advice in the video, but it aint working. I must have blown it up a dozen times by now.

Edit: Ok, so on further review, it does appear the problem was running out of water. The difficulty is in noticing the point at which it goes from having plenty, to having none, but because it's not easy to notice whether it's overfull vs. underfull, you can easily misidentify which it is since you can't be watching it all the time with so much else to pay attention to. Going uphill consumes lots of water too, which was not apparent until I started using the f4 view. I may also have been reversed on which way it reads uphill vs downhill, and that was throwing me off also.

[Skorj]

Originally posted by darkSol:

I'm having the exact same issue, and I've watched Squirrel's video where he explains the water level will change with elevation change, so it will look full when downhill, and empty while uphill, but for me it's blowing up every time I go down hill (at least this is what seems to be the case). I never know how much is actually in it by looking at the glass, it shows full. In the video he says don't touch the water amount until you're on level ground, but I blow up before I ever reach level ground. It doesn't make sense that I should need to keep filling it and emptying it every time I go up or downhill to keep it in the glass (that's not how it should be working as I understand it), and that goes against the advice in the video, but it aint working. I must have blown it up a dozen times by now.

If it were realistic, the gauge is telling you what the danger is, downhill or up. The gauge and the firebox are both at the back of the train, so you have to add water to go downhill safely. I think it's that way in Simulator. Not sure about uphill, no clue what the game does about overfilling. The amount it goes up and down seems ridiculous to me for 1.5% grades, but I'm not the fun kind of engineer, so I don't really know.

Of course, that only helps if you have water in the tender in the first place, which apparently you don't at the end of a long run to the harbor. But maybe there was something I was doing wrong there.

[darkSol]

Originally posted by Skorj:

If it were realistic, the gauge is telling you what the danger is, downhill or up.

I'm pretty sure the guage only reads accurate when you're on level ground, which I'm pretty certain is correct (Hyce's video confirmed this is how it works in real life). I think I said it wrong in my post above, when going uphill it will read overfull, and down it will read under.

The issue I was having is that because it reads overfull while going uphill, it wasn't apparent that I was consuming a lot of water. And when it switched to a downhill section, I thought it was showing full, but it was actually empty (again, its not easy to tell at a glance when it's either maxed out vs completely empty). Now that I know this is what was going on I'm pretty sure I have it under control. I was able just now to get quite a long distance without blowing up for the first time (I was coming from the coal mine in a sandbox save).

[Azige]

Originally posted by Skorj:

Originally posted by darkSol:

I'm having the exact same issue, and I've watched Squirrel's video where he explains the water level will change with elevation change, so it will look full when downhill, and empty while uphill, but for me it's blowing up every time I go down hill (at least this is what seems to be the case). I never know how much is actually in it by looking at the glass, it shows full. In the video he says don't touch the water amount until you're on level ground, but I blow up before I ever reach level ground. It doesn't make sense that I should need to keep filling it and emptying it every time I go up or downhill to keep it in the glass (that's not how it should be working as I understand it), and that goes against the advice in the video, but it aint working. I must have blown it up a dozen times by now.

If it were realistic, the gauge is telling you what the danger is, downhill or up. The gauge and the firebox are both at the back of the train, so you have to add water to go downhill safely. I think it's that way in Simulator. Not sure about uphill, no clue what the game does about overfilling. The amount it goes up and down seems ridiculous to me for 1.5% grades, but I'm not the fun kind of engineer, so I don't really know.

Of course, that only helps if you have water in the tender in the first place, which apparently you don't at the end of a long run to the harbor. But maybe there was something I was doing wrong there.

Totally agree.

Squirrel's video might be a bit misleading. I would recommend always keeping water visible in the gauge. Close the damper when going down hill, as you don't need power and it should prevent an explosion. If you can't see water in the gauge, just close the damper and don't let the fire burn too hot first, then add some water to the boiler.

[Degrease (RUS)]

Originally posted by Pops:

A few post mention the water in the tender runs dry a lot quicker than you would expect. Use the F4 menu to determine the level of the boiler high or low if you are unsure

https://steamcommunity.com/app/588030/discussions/1/3800524254171212534/

https://steamcommunity.com/app/588030/discussions/0/3800524658156119084/

It doesn't work in VR.

[Pops]

Yeah unfortunately I am not sure how to help in VR other than keeping track of where it was.

To compound the issue the water level goes down and up with steam pressure. So on tough uphill climbs not only are you consuming water your losing pressure in the boiler. reducing the level further On uphills I like seeing the water level bouncing off the top. Or mid when the pressure starts dropping. On downhills I like seeing the water bouncing off the bottom.

I am not sure if anything is simulated with over filling but under filling will make you go bang until they simulate fire plugs. So regardless of the terrain I always make sure there is a level in the bottom of the sight glass. As I find especially on uphills once the level leaves the bottom of the sight glass going boom is not far behind

[SteelWheels]

The water level over the crown sheet DOES vary when you go uphill or downhill on a real steam locomotive. It takes a lot of planning from the fireman / stoker to keep the steam up and to anticipate the water level on the hills.

The water level rises when you open the throttle. NOT, as commonly believed, because of the reduced pressure as that is equivalent all around the boiler shell, but because the boiling point is lowered. In combination with the boiler tubes heating up from the fire gasses passing through with the locomotive working hard, the bubbles forming around the tubes displace the liquid water and gives you an artificiality high water level. So the fireman has to bear in mind where the regulator/throttle setting is. In practice, the water bobs up and down and the fireman has to take an average reading.

Up to 2019, I spent many sessions servicing, lighting and preparing steam locomotives over 13 years...

[Pops]

I never knew steam locos used enough steam to change level. Good to know. I am a ship engineer and on steam plants if there a sudden opening or closing of the throttle bodies you get the same effect and you have to monitor the automation to make sure it is handling the make up feed correctly.

[Skorj]

There's a tendency to think of the loco as a big tube filled with water, but it's mostly filled with flues and tubes with some water in between. The amount of water can be surprisingly small compared to the overall size of the locomotive. Still a lot more than the water in naval small tube boilers of course (those get used in hobby steam locos too, as they heat up much faster than fire tube boilers).