The Boiler: A new feature in Railcraft by CovertJaguar

     The boiler is another cool construction that Covert Jaguar has added to Railcraft, a 2x2 (minimum) base of Solid Fuel Fireboxes and a top of a 2x2x2 (minimum) High/Low Pressure Boilers creates the construct of the boiler. You have to love the way Covert Jaguar makes his machines, like other machines he has made it can be expanded to higher dimensions.  Example of a Boiler shown here:

Now to what it does:

• You have to pump water into it (or place buckets inside its GUI) and have a fuel source inside of it.
• Anything a furnace can smelt can be used as a fuel source.
• Once the Temperature inside of the boilers hits 100°C it will start to quickly convert your water into steam.
• Steam is a source of power similar to oil or fuel; however it cannot be put in a bucket (Bucket of Steam)
• It has to be pumped into Steam Engines. (also added by Railcraft)
• It can be transferred through waterproof pipes and can be stored in iron tanks or regular buildcraft tanks.
• It can be pumped out through any of the sides of the boiler
• It can blow up if it runs out of water.

While making a system for it here are some things I noticed:

• When you use a buildcraft gate to detect when the tank is full it adds the water and the steam tanks together making it impossible to check when it is full of water.
• It makes steam extremely fast so pumping it out is essential to the build.
• It doesn't respond to a redstone signal, you have to break a block or take out the fuel to disable it.
• Steam engines require water to run as well as steam plus a fuel source making it complicated to use.

    Overall this new mechanic that Covert Jaguar made is really neat and I know I'll be using it as a replacement for Combustion engines because the Steam is an unlimited resource.  This fact might make it  unbalanced, but to make a system to automatically make and use Steam (with buildcraft) isn't as easy as making an automatic Oil or Fuel system.  Most importantly I suggest you go check out Railcraft as it is a wonderful mod even if you don't like Minecarts.