Not sure how C&TS does it, but it takes 4-5 hours to get a cold engine fired up. (one that has not been used for the last day or two)
Many places start off with wood, and then convert to coal once steam pressure starts to build. This is because you need a good bed of coals in order to get the coal ignited and you need some kind of draft to keep the smoke out of the cab.
Typically once steam has been fired up, overnight the fires are banked, which means the front of the fire slowly dies out overnight while a bank of fresh coal along the back of the firebox slowly burn all night long. By the next morning the dead ash is dumped in the front, the bank is pushed forward or spread out over the grates, dead ash dumped from the back of the fire box, then new coal spread out on top of the now spread out bank to get the fire back to operation and ready for another day.
If the fire is dumped, then the fire is relit as mention in the first paragraph.
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/14/2017 06:00AM by narrowgaugejoe10.