PC C40-8w Q249 Autorack Service

Discussion in 'Troubleshooting' started by kirbyfisher69, Nov 27, 2020.

  1. kirbyfisher69

    kirbyfisher69 Member

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    This is my first service outside of training for the -8.
    First time I attempted it, I had the -8 lead and an SD40 trail. Not enough power to get up the grade.
    By the time I got to Hyndman and dropped to 25mph, I had a continual drop in speed while at max power. Decided to quite and try again.
    Second time, I got an AC4400 as my trail. Thinking....cool, this should work. Only slightly.
    As I slowed to 25mph past Hyndman, my speed continued to drop to about 17-18mph. Barely holding on. At max power. If I had to stop, I would not get the train moving again.
    Could this be due to Banking Comm not being functional? Should not matter if second engine is connected to first I thought.
    Could not imagine if this was real that a train would be setup that could not handle the load up the grade and have the power to stop if necessary and then continue on.
     
  2. ht-57

    ht-57 Member

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    No its not your imagination this actually is quite common IRL.
    Firstly You picked a tuff one! throw in some adverse weather and it will be pretty challenging i'd bet!
    So the Q249 is 4690 tons giving you approx 1.5 hpt (Horse Power per Ton), So yeah sounds 'bout right. like its functioning like the real thing. Be happy you were maintaining17 mph on the hill!
    here's a quote from some one who works for up and spends alot of time on the Mojave sub
    which has grades up to 2.9% which is steeper than sandpatch. as an example of what goes on-

    "Every so often UP comes out with "no more DC motors on the Mojave sub, we promise" then like clockwork here comes the parade of SD70Ms. Which is fine by us because all we do is pack a big lunch, bring a book, and kick our feet up while we wait for the patch to come get us at the bottom of bealeville."

    I couldn't believe the amount of stalls and derailments that actually happen. This derailment actually happened while going uphill,
    it was caused by a condition known as "stringlining" off topic but interesting non the less


    anyhow,
    The banking com isn't working in the CW40 but as you correctly pointed out it is not needed in this situation.
    here's a link to figure out HPT, all you need is the tonnage of your train and how many and what type of loco. there's no listing for the cw40 but its 4000hp. you can get a pretty good idea of what you have power-wise and what to expect for performance to get you over the hill.
    As you experienced 1.5 hpt is not going to give you any hill climbing speed records

    https://www.thedepotserver.com/reference/enginecalc/
     
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  3. Anthony Pecoraro

    Anthony Pecoraro Well-Known Member

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    Same cause as Horseshoe Curve derailments.
     
  4. stujoy

    stujoy Well-Known Member

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    Nothing can get all the way up the grade in the rain without helpers. Try it, I dare you. Even the scenario with the Dash 8 that says to stop at the summit has the stop point just before the steepest part, on a part of the route you just wouldn’t stop. It’s still labelled summit but I reckon when testing this scenario nobody could get to the summit so they just moved the stop point. It would have originally gone to the loop at the real summit.

    A similar thing occurs with the Ice and Snow scenario from the main scenarios, where the title and the talking secondman refer to adverse conditions, when in fact it’s lovely and sunny all the way. I guess when testing it nobody could get up the grade so they took the bad weather out of it to make it possible, resulting in much head scratching from players.

    Some of the fun things I’ve noticed in tonight’s date with TSW2.
     
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  5. Anthony Pecoraro

    Anthony Pecoraro Well-Known Member

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    Powering America Part 2 used to have dynamic weather.
     
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  6. Blacknred81

    Blacknred81 Well-Known Member

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    It would be nice if the timetable scenarios for sand patch would at least add both helpers and an extra locomotive or 2 to the front of the consist for extra power. Unsure why we have this mentality where we only need 2 locos on the front of each train and no helpers on others....
     
  7. peterg1002612

    peterg1002612 Member

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    i had the same problems with the sd-40 i contacted dovetail and they said they would look into it
     
  8. Trainmania100

    Trainmania100 Well-Known Member

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    Did you cut in the automatic brakes as per the tutorial ? I find the train moves with the brakes cut out but has limited power. Just done a double stack successfully
     

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