Re:# 118 Is better

My $.02 here (not worth much these days). My experience has been nearly all with oil except for one woodburner (Porter 0-4-0T). The important thing with oil firing is that the firebox must not be allowed to cool suddenly, so it must always be filled with enough fire. That is what makes it tricky, as anything the engineer does will affect the draft and so the fire, so the fireman must anticipate what the engineer does if possible, and react as quickly as possible otherwise, or else there will either be not enough fire, hence a cold draft which will contract the metal, or else too much fire, which will make smoke and soot up the flues. So you don't get to relax much, even if you are always sitting on your kiester. It seems to me that with wood and coal, the fire itself will take care of smaller variations like that as long as you have a good base (at least that is what old timers have told me), so you fire more for the long term.
When I was learning to fire, an old SP engineer gave me this tip: You have to keep an eye on your fire (at the peephole), an eye on the water level, an eye on the stack for proper color, an eye on the engineer to see what he does, an eye on the track ahead, an eye on your side of the train for hotboxes and problems, and if you have any eyes left over you can watch for pretty girls!
Someday I would love to try firing coal, that is, if my back would take it!
Chris