15 mph is the trigger speed. trying going in just below. I don’t sign Euston but usually the grids are halfway down the platform and set around 12 mph
Yeah, they are very harsh. Just have to remember that. Nothing worse than doing a non-stop Pendo run from MK and then getting a brake penalty at 15mph rolling into Euston. Although the scoring still happily gives you Platinum!!
In real life when TPWS was introduced the loops protecting buffer stops were initially set at 10mph and Drivers were briefed that they must pass over the loops at less than 10mph. The result was a lot of TPWS activations due to Drivers aiming for 9mph and slightly mis-judging it. As a result, the trigger speed was increased to 12mph, and the (official) instruction remained to pass over the loops at below 10mph, therefore creating a bit of margin for error. In practice, Drivers are aware that the loops are now set at 12mph, and you won’t get into trouble providing you don’t activate the TPWS. Of course, if you do activate the TPWS it means you need a rather better explanation, as it means you must have been going 3mph faster than you should have been, rather than 1mph faster! At my operator an off-used mantra for new Drivers is ‘nine is fine, eight is great, seven is heaven’. In practice if you go over the loops at 7mph it feels a terribly long time until you have to re-apply the brake to stop at the buffer stops, so most Drivers aim for about 9mph.
Thank you for your very comprehensive and interesting reply (worthy of a railway magazine). That 12mph seemed indeed strange to me, as I remembered 10mph instead.
This line will live rent free in my mind for the rest of my life And as a non-native English speaker, I'll probably use it out of context wherever I can... so thanks a lot !
