With the 86 or 87 are you meant to run down completely before braking or not? Can you do it still with power. I sometimes find thats the trickiest part of driving it as it takes a lot of planning to slow down for speed limits and stops, particularly when some big gradient changes happen like the one down from shap summit. Its quite impractical to do as I am close to 110 miles per hour but if I was to run it down with no braking, I still would overspeed. Any advice?
I tend to run down so far then slam into “Off”. Not how it was done IRL but as TSW doesn’t model running damage to the traction equipment you can get away with it. I do the same if late taking off power for a neutral section. As an aside, if you isolate one of the traction motors via the engine room cabinet, that also disables the rheostatic braking so you don’t have to worry about taking the power off before applying the brakes! You also get to hear the rather nice brake rub effect too.
I do yes and rundown and shut off controller to allow for bit of momentum into platform so as not to over run platform that way you can retain control without a runaway situation
Running the power all the way down doesn’t take that long but if you need to brake before running all the way down you can go straight to OFF and brake immediately. You may shake your train and passengers about if you do that from a higher notch. Under normal circumstances you will know when you need to run down through route knowledge. For stations and speed limit changes you know where they are so have plenty of time to run all the way down.
Good question! I tend to anticipate the braking in advance, but every now and then I forget/get distracted and set the controller to run down while applying brakes at the same time. No idea if that’s good for the loco IRL though! I’ve noticed that without running g down (I.e. in “hold”) it runs down automatically when braking, and then runs back up to wherever it was as long as it doesn’t run down to 0. Again, no idea if that’s real or desired behaviour..
I try to run down as well before braking and avoid going into Off unless its necessary But the 87 does have a trick up its sleeve if the throttle isn’t all the way down to zero and you apply brake with the handle in off the rheostatic dose kick in with a fixed resistance. When the tap changer hits 0 it will transition into regular variable rheostatic breaking. also is there a historical reason with why you can’t pull rheostatic breaking without pulling air brakes?
I find braking the 87 on freight is a bit tricky. You need a tap to loco brake first to take the slack out of the train before applying the initial step of train brake otherwise the wagons will push you forward. Is there a way of adjusting the brake timings on freight to avoid that?
Supposedly that behaviour is fixed in today’s patch but I haven’t checked it out yet. There is a switch in the machine room to set the brakes to goods timing. It’s in an alcove and near the ceiling.
Yes you need to run down the power before braking. I don’t think it really matters in game but in real life that’s what would have been done.
Ideally you’d run the taps all the way down before going to Off, but that isn’t always possible, either in the game or in real life. For example, if you’re doing 110mph at full power and you come across a double yellow, if you waited until the taps had run down before braking, you’d be braking from 110mph approaching the single yellow. That would leave insufficient braking distance and result in a SPAD. In real life a Driver would run the taps down a bit, to reduce the jolt, then go into Off, and brake. What you shouldn’t do is brake with power still applied.
Putting the throttle from power directly to off is like quitting your game by pulling the PC cord out of the wall. Yes, it does the job, but you can figure out that it shortens the PC's lifespan quite heavily if you do it every day. There should be no reason to be in high notches when approaching the speed limit in the first place, once you are 10 mph under the limit already start to notch down towards half, watch the acceleration rate and adjust as necessary. Then at 5 mph under the limit do the same again. Eventually you shouldn't need more than few seconds to step fully down before you start approaching the limit itself. As always, remember that it is called speed limit. That is a speed that you are not allowed to overrun in any case, not at all the speed that you should be necessarily running at the whole time.
If you’re on a rising gradient, you may well need around 100% power to keep close to the line speed. Your fixed formula of reducing power 10mph below line speed won’t work if you’re on a rising gradient - you’ll just end up holding speed 7-8mph below line speed, and will lose time. Line speeds on rail are very different to speed limits on a road. Sectional Running Times are timed on the assumption you’ll be running close to line speed. As a Driver, you can’t just decide you’re going to go slower on the off chance you get cautionary aspects, and arrive late. In any case, it makes little difference whether you’re at 100% power at 110mph or 90% power at 100mph. If you see a double yellow, you’re going to need to go to Off when there is still some power applied if you’re going to brake safely for the red. That’s true in real life and in the game. Going to Off when power is still applied is nothing like pulling the plug on your PC without shutting it down. The Off position is designed to be used in that way when required (such as in the circumstances I describe).
Sorry, just to hopefully help with this, this is the BR Drivers manual for tap-changer electric locos. http://locodocs.co.uk/brmanuals/AC-GeneralParticularsDrivingandOperatingProcedureDefects-1-part2.htm See the bottom of page 126 and the top of page 127: This confirms that it is preferable to run power down as far as you can before moving to Off, but to avoid “the jolt or ‘snatch’ which would otherwise be experienced” not because of any damage to traction motors which would result, and specifically: “It is quite in order to shut off power at any tap changer position, but the lower the current being taken by the motors the less noticeable the snatch will be”
I do run down as quickly as possible but sometimes find either through my sheer blindness or something else that i don't have enough time to get to desired speed. I ideally aim to get at least 1 mph below speed limit at all times. Especially on that 1 percent grade down shap. It always catches me out
