Re: 493

As I said over on the facebook page. Each fuel has its own challenge. I've fired Wood, Coal, and Oil. Most of my experience is with Oil though. Oil is not an easy fuel, you have to pay attention to every throttle movement, every change in the johnson bar, because that effects your draft. Oil is not physically demanding, but mentally demanding. You always have to be thinking ahead, it helps to have good communication between engineer and fireman. In the 111, its quiet enough we can just yell at each other, in the Shay, we usually use hand signals because its too loud to yell over. Oil does still take all your senses, looking at the color of your smoke, smelling the smoke, raw fuel is a unique odor, so you know if your drooling without looking under the engine. Listening to your fire, do I have too much or too little atomizer, is my blower sucking the fire out. In the right hands, oil can be no harder on a boiler then any other fuel, but its far from a cake walk.....same as coal. Gotta know your engine, and know your engineer too. Its a challenge thats different from coal, but still a challenge in its own right