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SL-02 Medium Steam Locomotive

This is a very basic steam powered locomotive. It has a large firebox with approximately 30 units of coal, two steam boilers, 4 not powered leading wheels, 2 sets of 6 powered driving wheels, 4 not powered trailing wheels, a working radio, lights, a track switch system, and a forward facing camera to aide with limited visibility. The locomotive was built to use my personal train system controller to work with my collection of train cars and other locomotives. There is also a small assortment of personal equipment for a crew of two operators.

It has a top speed around 65 miles-per-hour but that can't be held for long because the boilers lose steam pressure relatively quickly at full throttle. It's recommended that you stay around 0.37 on the throttle to conserve boiler pressure. This should give you a stable cruising speed around 40 mph which isn't too bad.

Starting the locomotive isn't too complicated. Start by turning on the air intake for the firebox. There is a black switch on the left side of the panel above the firebox. Then press the red switch to light the firebox. Wait for both boilers to heat up and accumulate at least 4 units of pressure per boiler. Release the brakes using the levers on the right side of the cab. Push the reverser lever to the forward position. This isn't really required as there's only a system in place to switch to reverse, but it helps if you have multiple locomotives connected. Finally, slowly increase the red lever to around 0.40 to start moving forward.

You can add water to the boilers using the hose anchors found on the right side of the locomotive. The boilers are completely separate and will need to be filled independently of one another. If you press the gray switches near the ports hoses will rotate out allowing you to connect to an external water tank. Use fresh water to not damage the boilers.

The external control system takes into consideration if the locomotive is facing the same direction as the controlling locomotive as well as if it is in front of or behind the controlling locomotive. The "External Control" switch indicates if the locomotive is not the controlling vehicle in the train, while the "Power from Rear" switch indicates that the controlling vehicle is "Behind" the current vehicle. This means that normally data would be passed from the front vehicle along the train to the rear vehicle, but it can be configured to control the train from any position in the consist without issues. There is also a switch to invert the transmitted reverser position in the event that the current locomotive is not facing the same direction as the controlling locomotive. The switch also switches the sides of the RGB navigation lights on the sides of the smoke stack indicating which direction the train as a whole is facing/moving.

The micro-controller uses the following channels to control all vehicles in a consist:

Numbers:
- 1. Throttle Position of controlling vehicle
- 2. Reverser Position of controlling vehicle
- 3. Independent Brake Position of controlling vehicle
- 4. Train Brake Position of controlling vehicle