Driving a train

Call the train, work the cab and the boiler, take on coal and water, throw switches and read the signals.

Calling the train

1. Go to the Steamline booth on a station’s platform and press J (“Open the yard”).
2. The yard screen lists your company’s parked train with its wear. Put it together from the company’s cars: up to 3 behind the tender and a caboose at the end. The screen keeps them in order: passenger cars, boxcars, flatcars, then the caboose.
3. Pick the way it leaves. Going to shows how far a station is each way and marks the shortest; it starts on the station your company’s freight from here goes to.
4. Call train. It appears on the station’s track, the fire lit and the boiler under pressure, ready to leave.

Anyone in the company calls the train, at any station. The first call brings the coal and water of Config.Boiler.Start; later calls bring back what the train had when it was parked.

Taking the controls

By the engine, on foot:

• U (“Take the controls”): you climb into the driver’s seat. Only the train’s company drives it.
• J (“Work the fire”): you stand in the cab as the fireman. Anyone can, even from another company. One fireman at a time.

The driver leaves with E; the fireman with J, once the train has stopped.

The cab

Key	Driver
W / S	Throttle up / down (8 steps)
A / D	Reverser back / forward, with the train stopped
Space	Brake (hold)
X	Emergency brake
H	Whistle, heard by the players near
C	Holds the current speed
R	Injector on / off
U / L	Fire up / down
B	Shovel coal from the tender into the firebox (only while nobody works the fire)
Z	Throws the next switch
Q	Folds the cab map, again to show it
V	The next train camera

The fireman has U / L (fire), R (injector), B (shovel: hold it to keep shovelling), X (emergency brake), Q and V.

The panel shows the speed, the pressure, the coal in the tender and the firebox, the water in the tender and the boiler, the throttle, the brake and the reverser. The cab map shows the way ahead: the next switch, the stations, water and coal, a train ahead and where your freight goes.

V turns between the game’s train camera (farther out), the view inside the coach and the view beside the cab.

The boiler

• The fire burns the coal in the firebox and makes pressure; the throttle uses the steam, and the steam uses the boiler’s water.
• B moves coal from the tender into the firebox, 15 kg a shovel. A full firebox takes no more.
• R opens the injector, which moves water from the tender into the boiler. It turns off by itself when the boiler is full.
• Low boiler water under a high fire damages the boiler, and a damaged boiler holds less pressure.
• If the boiler runs dry with the fire on, the train stops. On servers with Config.Boiler.DryBoiler = 'explode', the boiler explodes: the wreck is cleared and sent to the nearest workshop’s yard, where the train must be called and its boiler repaired.
• Out of coal, water or steam, the train still crawls at about 3 mph, so it can reach the next water tower.
• The heavier the train, the slower: up to the engine, the tender and two coaches it reaches its full speed. Cargo counts too. Worn wheels, brakes and boiler take speed, braking and pressure away (see Maintenance).

Coal and water

At every station, by hand and free:

• Coal: at the coal pile press G (“Fill the shovel”), walk to the tender and press G again (“Load the tender”). Each trip adds 75 kg. G away from the tender puts the shovel down.
• Water: stop the tender beside the water tower and press G at the spout’s rope (“Water spout”). The water runs at 150 litres a second until the tender is full.

Some towers along the line give water only: Cumberland Falls, Eris Field, Southfield Flats, Saint Denis, Brandywine Drop and Van Horn Trading Post. One player at a time uses each pile and each tower.

Switches and signals

• Z throws the next switch to its other exit, when it is within 400 m and no other train is on it (“The switch is held by a train”).
• On foot, the driver can throw a switch by its lever with G.
• The line is cut into blocks, and one train holds a block at a time. The panel shows the signal: Line clear, Stop: block taken or Stop: broken rail. In front of a red block the train is held short of it.
• When a train runs at you on your own track, you are warned how far ahead it is.
• A broken rail closes its block until a crew repairs it (see Maintenance).

Parking

Stop the train at a station’s yard, open the yard screen (J at the booth) and press Park train. It is saved with its coal, water, wear and paint: “Train parked. It will be here when you come back.”

A train with nobody of its crew within 150 m brakes to a stop by itself. After 5 minutes it is removed and parked back at the yard it was called from.