Also, when doing the training for the 158 in Midland Main line, it would be appropriate to put brakes in APPLIED position and not release position. edit when changing ends. This tends to allow rollingstock to roll away and for millions of dollars of damage and huge safety problems for operators..... I operated similar equipment in Australia. WE ALWAYS HAVE HANDBRAKES. And it is a matter of course to leave a handbrake on. These days you will be fired for not doing so. Also wagons and cars should have a minimum of 10% handbrakes applied on flat territory. In steep grades it would be 100%. I hope DTG and Skyhook can work this into their update program. It would be appreciated if someone can research or provide some photos if the 158. It must have hand brakes. I can't believe it wouldn't have it. It is an essential for a locomotive and railcar.
As Vern says, it is highly likely to be a button rather than a big wheel that you turn and so, is most likely in game, meaning your whole rant is most likely pointless.
They don’t have a handbrake per say. The brake blocks are on tight springs and as the air bleeds off, the brakes apply against the wheels. The build up of air is used to pull the blocks away from the wheels.
Very interesting as every appliance/locomotive/railcar I have ever operated has a manual handbrake whether that is a push button or a wheel similar to the UK and US locomotives in TSW.
Chalk it up to a quirk of the Westcode EP brake system. There is no conventional brake pipe, only a reservoir pipe to supply air along the train, some brake code wires on the "energise to release" principle, and a train continuity wire which supplies power to the driver's brake handle only from the furthest vehicle, via the Door Interlock on each vehicle. As noted above, the parking brake automatically applies via a spring when it is not held off by available air pressure. With the brake handle in Full Service or the Master Key removed, the brake code wires are de-energised and the brakes automatically apply. When the emergency brakes are applied (either through a brake handle anywhere on the train, the passenger Communication Cords, or the various safety systems), the code wires are actively grounded, so the brakes apply even if they are energised. And when the unit is shut down, the EP brake remains applied so long as air pressure exists to do so, and the parking brake is fully applied by the time that air pressure has drained away so much as to render the EP brake ineffective. Overall, the system dovetails together pretty well, and eliminates the need for a manually operated handbrake. With the latter, it is all too easy to forget that it's applied - or indeed which vehicle it was applied on in the first place. However, it does rely on the individual vehicles being fairly lightweight and thus only requiring a relatively small amount of brake force for parking. Locomotives thus still have manually operated parking brakes (which can often be remotely controlled), and freight wagons still have one operated by a handwheel.
Thaienami explained it well, actually there is also a pbic (parking brake isolation c'ck), needed in certain fault situations. The lever is in the mbc panel. You vent the pipe on the spring parking brake to atmosphere and they get applied. The unit is modeled well, im surprised they got it in that detail quality. Where is potential for improvement is the MU working. We have 3 sprinters now in tsw (150, 158 & 166), with an upcoming potential class 142. Those Trains are All mu compatible and can run when coupled. While Dtg made the mu working compatible on the bluestar equipment (br diesels), non of the sprinters can even coupled together. They are also working with 143/144, 155/156/153/165/166/170. Why here nobody thinks ahead??? Those combinations improve the variety. Right now they have to go back and add the feature.
If I recall my sectional appendix instructions correctly, Class 165/166 although sharing common BSI couplings were not permitted to couple with Sprinter or Pacer type traction I think due to differences in electrical and control systems. Pacers were also notorious for not working well in multiple either within the classes or coupled to Sprinters. There used to be a 03+25 ECS from Canton to Gloucester which conveyed a mixture of 15x and 143 units for the service start up. The number of times it came to grief en route with unsolicited brake applications and had to be split and recoupled was legendary, run forward with the EBS raised or as a last resort dump one of the sets in a loop somewhere.
Yes the technical troubles are for sure part of the fact, that certain combination were not allowed / used. I just think dtg can enhance the variety in the timetable with the mu working of different classes.
I agree. Having signed Class 142’s and Class 144’s recently, I still don’t feel right walking away from the unit without applying a handbrake!
Thank you all here who have taken time to shed light on this. I'll read this later! I'm a bit busy but thank you!!!!!!
Funny enough the same thing now applies to cars. Just traded my Kia Sportage for a Toyota Yaris Hybrid and the first thing I noticed is no physical handbrake. There are two buttons on the centre console, one is park, essentially an electronic parking brake which applies automatically when you put the (automatic) shift into Park and releases if you move the shifter to R or D. Then there’s a hold button which you push if you are stopped in traffic on a hill. I don’t feel entirely comfortable leaving the car parked on a hill without a ruddy firm lever and ratchet physically clamping those rear brakes on.
There was a regular feature, for about the last year or so of the Pacers' mainline service, where they would be operated in multiple with a 153. The latter provided the wheelchair-accessible and bicycle carriage accommodation that the Pacers didn't, and which new regulations had just begun to require. Meanwhile the Pacers were needed to maintain enough service capacity until EMUs on the newly electrified Liverpool-Manchester route could displace them (possibly via cascade). Reliability was undoubtedly improved by running them as fixed formations.
That makes sense to have a park brake apply automatically when the main reservoir or any air vents to atmosphere. Similar to a vacuum brake but in reverse. I did Rail Journeys for MML and the training says to release the brakes when changing ends. This is a no no. I hope they can just get the same voice actor to insert a different line. I applied brakes to 3 (I suppose procedure is EP?) and then changed ends. Unless when the master key is taken out, but it still doesn't make sense. You want to have good habits and oppose things that confuse us. Applying the brake makes sense when leaving a cab. Does it not? Certainly releasing the brake is recipe for a disaster ie runaway..... I'd love to hear what a real train driver of the 158 has to say based on experience and especially reference such as real manuals etc. And to Meridian and Thaienami, thank you. Meridian what about powered cars? Do they have a park brake too? Thaienami, yes so master key removal sets it off like I guessed. I just checked your excellent comment. I wonder what the certified and approved procedure is. These days operators have to present their procedures to regulators so they can maintain and gain approval whether they are starting off or continuing operations.
I tried to implement as many of the safety features and brake continuity functionality as possible on the Class 158. Very many of the circuit breakers do work as the manual describes it. Regarding the MU (in)compatibility, this part is a bit more tricky. The situation we have in TSW is three different DMUs that should be possible to run in MU, but they were all made by three different developers at quite different times. If a previous DLC (I'm mostly thinking of the 150 right now) is not set up correctly, do I make the 158 incorrect as well to make it compatible but in turn reduce the realism of the 158 and also "keep the train going" of incorrect setups? Or do I make it prototypical and break compatibility? I (as much as I had a say/control) decided on the latter. Lastly you have the "Couple" button and the electrical boxes. On the 158 you need to press this button to connect the electrical boxes. Without that step you can't release the brakes. This is a feature that I thought was pretty cool so I implemented it. Of course, that doesn't exactly help with compatibility either since afaik no other IRL-compatible train has this implemented in TSW.
The tutorial instructions are most likely incorrect here (I didn't make the tutorial nor have I played it recently so I don't remember the details unfortunately). What I have been told by drivers is that you set the train brake in step 3 before shutting down the cab. If you shut down the cab quickly after releasing the brakes it doesn't technically matter since moving the reverser to "Off" will shut down the cab and automatically cut brake continuity leading to the brakes applying fully anyway. You definitely want to shut down the cab before changing ends however, otherwise you will have a conflict.
Leaving the brake handle in Step 3 would be the natural thing to do, and the most consistent with driving instructions for other BR types. The (BR era) manual I can find for the 156 states explicitly that Step 3 must be used when leaving the train unattended for any reason. The locomotive type air brakes on BR, for example, have the Shutdown (isolate from brake pipe) position beyond the Emergency (bighole) position, so the brakes cannot be left in a released state when shutting down the cab. Conversely the Knorr type brake valve used in Germany uses the Lap position, between Minimum Application and Running, for this purpose, and this is the only position in which the brake key can be removed. This makes mechanical sense for designing a brake valve, but indicates the conscious design decision made at BR to do things differently.
cwf.green, sorry wasn't a criticism towards you, mainly my own misunderstanding. You have done a great job on the 158 and I bought MML when I saw all the criticism and I loved it. The 158 is a clear and crisp TSW railcar. Without checking I think the engines in the 158 are Comeng? I drove the Prospector WCE railcars and they are fitted with Cummins diesels. They were brought in in 1970 although they were around until 2005. We had a push button park brake. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WAGR_WCA/WCE_class I have been spending a lot of time on the MML and it unfairly got way too much criticism. Thank you for letting me know. Well done!!
Yes the detail of simulated features is very impressive on the cl.158. Even the EBS can be isolated. For me this unit delivers a true fullscale experience on the rolling stock side. I thought the mu compatibility is probably due different devs approaching things in different ways. Thanks for explaining the situation
I didn't take your comment as criticism, don't worry (although I certainly welcome criticism, only way to improve!) I just wanted to give some information, both about the "design decisions" regarding the MU etc and what my understanding is of how the train is supposed to be handled IRL. I appreciate the kind words!
