Re: How much water is in the boiler?

Water bouncing around at the bottom of the glass, especially when going uphill is way past time to get more feedwater going...If you can't, it is time to drop the fire.

Had a scary experience once...
Happened to be helping hostler one day and we had a engine come in from a trip and left by the crew for us to service and put in the barn...she hadn't sat there very long and when we got on her to move her to the ash pit and clean the fire, we blew down and checked the water glass....there wasn't any! Nothing but a "hiss" from the bottom gauge cock either...

Called the roundhouse foreman, he got on her and asked us to stand off a ways while he opened the throttle a little to see if that would "raise" any water....it didn't! Wasn't much fire in her at that point, but we dropped what there was Pronto, right there, and left her to cool down until the next day.

Boilermen were called in to check the firebox and boiler over...fortunately nothing was found damaged, but it had been very very close. Crew that brought her in got some brownies in a investigation we all got called into a few days later...Engine returned to service OK.

I was glad as it was one of my favorite engines to fire....