Ah yes, good coal. We got some cheap stuff on the preserved railway where I volunteer and the engines wouldn't steam. My understanding of the blower is that when the engine is working the blast from the exhaust creates a vacuum in the smokebox which draws the fire throught the tubes. If you get better coal and fix the blower and the engine is steam shy, My inclination would be to check the blast pipe alignment. I've seen (and esperienced) that affect the steaming.Big Jim wrote: ↑Thu Apr 26, 2018 10:13 pm The new beastie had its first run today. Not as good as I hoped, the blower is blocked and we struggled to raise steam. This was not helped by some rather iffy coal. It was more than happy to pull me around with 15psi, albeit slowly. This suggest that all is okay and once the blower is sorted and some decent coal is sourced, all will be good.
Enjoy the locomotive. I suspect they're only teething problems. pulling at 15psi suggests a good engine.
Ian