Train Simulator: BR Standard Class 7 ‘Britannia Class’ Steam Loco Add-On DLC

This is a really interesting add-on. It's definitely worth going through the manual and trying things out on the locomotive. The Basics: 'E' gets the locomotive out of reverser lock. Once you get the reverser into an optimised position, you'd want to hit 'E' again to lock it into position as it will creep around on its own. 'U' and 'J' open up the large and small ejectors which allow the vacuum brakes to release. 'Shift-U' and 'Shift-J' close them. Keep the small ejector slightly open to maintain the vacuum so the brakes stays released. Performance: Optimum fire mass seems to be around 840-870 lbs (close the HUD on F4 and tap F5 twice to see this). By default, the locomotive starts off with less than that, so hit 'R' to start shovelling if you need steam quickly. At this fire mass and with the dampers on ('M' to open), the locomotive generates steam incredibly well (see some earlier reviews below). I've managed to pull 13 Mk1 coaches while maintaining 47-48 mph up the sustained 1:100 gradient north of Settle on the Settle & Carlisle, at full regulator, with the exhaust injector on. Quirks: As you'd imagine, any extra coal above the optimum fire mass will start to smother the fire and your ability to generate steam will gradually diminish (hit 'Shift-R' to stop shovelling). What's less expected is that if you continue to shovel , the fire inexplicably bursts into life when the fire mass exceeds 1,800 lbs and you'll be making absolutely comical amounts of steam (don't ask me how I discovered this). At a standstill, not even the safety valves can keep the boiler pressure under control and in 2-3 seconds you'll hit what appears to be a coded limit of 300.1 psi. As far as I know, boiler explosions / nuclear reactor meltdowns are not modelled. I'm curious to know if anyone else has tried this. Visuals/Sounds: They're alright. The lightly weathered and heavily weathered options are a nice touch. With the handbrake on you can do things like open the smokebox, perform a blow down, rock the grates, and drop the fire. Dropping the fire empties the fire box of coal but doesn't seem to change the fire mass on Train Simulator, so I suspect some of these features are 'visual-only'. I don't have many other steam locomotive add-ons to do a proper comparison; they seem fine, but not great. At the end of the day, I feel it is the driving experience and not the visuals and sounds that make this product interesting. Other Issues: I had an issue with getting access to the Just Trains Mk1 coaches when doing a select reinstallation of add-ons via Steam. It came with my purchase, but it will show as a separate DLC called "Product TwoHundredFiftyOne (500213)" which you need to search and enable in your Steam Library (under "Manage DLC").