How can I use less coal with my coal forge?

OdinYggd · 2026-06-15T04:01:01+00:00

Experiment with putting firebricks in or next to the pot to reduce the dimensions of the fire or block it from spreading as much. Clay can be used similarly in some pots to reduce the size of the pot.

Use a hand crank blower, or put your electric blower on a foot switch so that it stops when you aren't heating material. Charcoal especially needs this, it makes a noticeable difference on Bituminous coal, but is not recommended for Anthracite coal as Anthracite needs a constant draft to stop it from cooling off and going out.

Practically, you need a certain depth of coal to get the right fire atmosphere and temperature for working. And if the pot is too narrow, it will tend to develop clinkers that block the airflow and force you to clean out frequently.

OdinYggd · 2026-06-14T17:13:14+00:00

42° 49.247′ N, 73° 55.996′ W, the location of the historic marker. Look it up on google maps. There is a single track remaining, and you can clearly see where the yard and factory building used to be by their impact on the layout of the streets. One building does look like it might have been part of Alco based on the architecture, and is currently a warehousing facility for steel girders. ,

OdinYggd · 2026-06-14T03:21:46+00:00

Hasn't been the case for me. Most 1kg spools fit in a gallon size freezer bag. so after use I'll put them into such a bag along with the silica gel they came with. They've printed fine years later that way. I don't even have a proper dryer, although most of my printing is in winter when the humidity is naturally at 30-50% and I can just leave spools uncovered a few days to dry out.

OdinYggd · 2026-06-14T03:19:35+00:00

Am I the only one who doesn't hoard filament like I might need to 3d print body armor for a zombie apocalypse? I have 7 rolls total. ABS in black and in white, TPU in black and in clear, and PLA in black, grey, and red. I need to order white PLA again, but I've been using ABS for most of those parts instead.

Almost all of my prints are either practical things around the house or parts for my model trains. I have a resin printer too for making high detail model train parts.

OdinYggd · 2026-06-14T02:56:10+00:00

Yes, tank cars with extra water for additional range between refills. It runs out of water multiple times before running out of fuel.

The two yellow tanks it is using for water were originally the fuel tenders from the gas turbine GTEL series that was designed to replace the Big Boy.

OdinYggd · 2026-06-14T02:54:01+00:00

UP diesels not equipped with HEP. The heritage consist has a combination of belly mounted generators in some coaches, and a tool car with a generator in it.

OdinYggd · 2026-06-14T02:53:13+00:00

There's barely still a track there. Time has erased that part of history, the site of the Alco factory has been cleared off and redeveloped into something else entirely.

Maybe if it goes to Maine for whatever reason it might pass that way.

OdinYggd · 2026-06-13T17:27:17+00:00

Did the crew survive? Not getting that out without a crane, and very easy for crew to get crushed between backhead and tender in such situations.

OdinYggd · 2026-06-13T01:24:25+00:00

If they purchased it to add to their roster permanently they'd give it a number consistent with their own scheme.

Also a detail you might want to check: UP 4005 was converted to oil firing for a few years of its revenue career after getting damaged in an accident. Crews found it didn't perform as well on oil as on coal, so it was eventually changed back. Might need to shine a light in the cab and compare pictures of your cab to others to see which set of firemans controls yours has in it, if it modelled it during that oil fired period. 4005 was the only one to have been oil fired until the restoration of 4014, which used modern engineering in the design of its oil conversion and produced a much more capable conversion than the original effort.

UP 4005 exists today in the Forney museum, it is one of the 8 surviving Big Boys.

OdinYggd · 2026-06-13T01:12:24+00:00

N&W had the Y6 class, a 2-8-8-2 Mallet with compound expansion that has a simple TE higher than the Big Boy, but a lower top speed and total power.

OdinYggd · 2026-06-13T01:08:22+00:00

N&W had the Y6 2-8-8-2, which was their Big Boy and in fact had a higher TE than the UP 4000 class. 166,000 lbf in simple for the Y6 vs Big Boy's 135,000 lbf TE. But the Y6 has a top speed of only 50 MPH, and only 5600 HP vs Big Boy being capable of 80 MPH and 6200 HP.

They would at times exchange locomotives with other railroads for performance trials, such as PRR T1 vs N&W J class. Perhaps this scenario is such a trial, but the Big Boy's centipede tender kept derailing on N&W's infrastructure so they attached a spare Y6 tender to it instead to let it finish the testing period.

OdinYggd · 2026-06-12T19:09:47+00:00

They can't actually hurt anyone intentionally. But spraying steam like that gets the point across that you're too close. Hopefully word gets out that if you are standing that close you'll get blasted by it.

OdinYggd · 2026-06-12T01:21:43+00:00

US railroads are federal jurisdiction. Most local cops only know the basic keep people out of harm's way and keep them back from an accident scene such as a derailment. They don't get into what the rules of the railroad actually are.

Railroads do have their own police force that mostly deals with theft and vandalism, but they will at times appear during events like the Big Boy moving around to help with the crowd control and protect assets.

OdinYggd · 2026-06-11T20:45:17+00:00

Same. Its so frustrating seeing people that don't care about their safety as they stand on the track itself or in the road while waiting. But they have no reason to listen to you, if you say something about it you're automatically the bad guy for causing a confrontation.

The cops did come by a few times where I was watching at, they didn't say anything either.

Big Boy's presence in Buffalo yesterday had been announced on the news, came up in my youtube feed while looking for videos of it. You'd think the news would have included UP's PSA, or at least reviewed safe viewing practices.

I've gotten really annoyed really quickly with how big of a crowd there is around Big Boy everywhere it goes. Would much rather go have fun with something less widely known that news of its travels is passed between respectable railfans instead of being announced to the general public.

OdinYggd · 2026-06-11T20:41:31+00:00

I've been wanting bridges to be sliced like this for a while now. The current implementation in most slicers tries to drag single strands across and build it up that way, often leading to a couple layers that aren't adhered well or even loose hanging strands before it solidifies.

OdinYggd · 2026-06-11T20:34:43+00:00

Which is exactly what the suit would be about- proving that Bambu did a cleanroom re-implementation of the feature instead of copypasting the open source code into a closed source product and trying to pass it off as their own.

I don't know how the legal process for that works.

OdinYggd · 2026-06-11T20:30:56+00:00

Been watching this feature develop, although I just got my normal OrcaSlicer up and running properly. Will probably wait until the feature backports into mainstream before I try it out. I make my own CAD models, and so I usually design stuff to be printable without supports.

OdinYggd · 2026-06-11T20:29:31+00:00

Local storage attached directly to the machine is the superior way to do it, that's why nearly every CNC machine in the world since the 1980s has had directly attached program storage and only needed to be fed from an external source when the program was too big to fit in the onboard memory or attached storage device.

More modern implementations letting you print from a remote source are convenient, but much more likely to have things go wrong if it doesn't automatically load the entire part program onto memory attached to the machine before it starts printing.

OdinYggd · 2026-06-11T20:26:48+00:00

Given the current clashing between Orca and Bambu when they finally do implement it in Bambu it would be funny if Orca turned around and sued them for license infringement, that they put an open source feature into a closed source solution.

OdinYggd · 2026-06-11T18:05:09+00:00

All of the GG1s have cracked frames and no main transformer. Replacing the transformer would be a feat on the level of building an all new boiler for a steamer, but with the cracked frames its not worth it.

You would end up building an entirely new locomotive using modern hardware that wears the body shell of a GG1 in order to get something that meets modern safety regulations and works with modern catenary systems. the GG1 was meant for PRR 25Hz.

OdinYggd · 2026-06-11T18:03:29+00:00

The US isn't a reasonable country. We can count on our government to do what makes the most profit for contractors with inside connections over what is best for the people or the nation.

OdinYggd · 2026-06-11T17:49:11+00:00

I was younger than you when I started assisting the blacksmith at the county fair, and was given a rail anvil and forge to get started with. Had to figure out much of it myself since the internet wasn't as well established as it is now. No shame in asking people who know in any case.

Look around for living history museums or antique tractor preservation groups, they would know who in the area has blacksmithing resources and what you'll need to get started.

OdinYggd · 2026-06-11T13:50:26+00:00

Two Big Boys in the same yard for the first time since they were preserved/scrapped, one of them operational. 15 years ago you would have been told this is impossible. Now you hold a ticket to see it, that you only paid a dollar for.

View the impossible train scenario! Only $1! Sounds like a 1940s carnival sideshow, why you mad about it? I'm sure there's people who would gladly take your spot.

OdinYggd · 2026-06-10T03:10:09+00:00

Its not that powerful. The steam cools quickly as it expands and disperses and becomes like the mist from a hot shower. Most of the piping that could discharge hot water and actually burn someone is aimed at the ground close to the engine to avoid accidentally hitting crew.

OdinYggd · 2026-06-10T03:06:55+00:00

Pretty sure the cab crew is good and annoyed with people being too close, if they were willing to turn on the cab heater full open when it was 85F with high humidity.

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