Has anyone else noticed a difference in the sounds of the 158 post update? Starting in notch 3 the revving is much shorter, it sounds like it did before the changes to the sound were made to make them more prototypical. Edit: the sound change seems to be coming and going, at the moment it sounds as it should
I did notice one peculiar issue with it. I was pulling away from Grantham onto the mainline, notch 4 from the 25 to 90 crossover & the front engine died, with only the rear engine powering the train. After a few seconds the front engine came back on.
Believe me, I was there when Regional Railways as it was introduced them in 1990/91. They weren't that reliable then. Made worse by at the beginning, each car had an independent alternator so if the engine shut down you lost everything electrical on that car after about 30 minutes when the battery gave out. Later on they were modded to provide a cross feed between cars and not just the 158's that had this fundamental design flaw. Most of the early Sprinter fleet did. BR were sold a bit of a pup that the Sprinters would be ultra reliable, never break down and could spend 3 or 4 days away from home depot (in the case of the Western, Canton) on cyclic diagrams in between A-Exams.
I vaguely recall going on a 158 in 1994 when it was still quite new. Seems a common theme with the implementation of BR stock in the 80s and early 90s. And not much different now. I remember the Class 357s when they were new and gliding out of the station like on a track made out of silk. Now they lurch and groan out of the stations with the traction motors whining grumpily after 20plus years toiling up and down the LTS. Hence my tongue in cheek response to the original post which was not meant to overlook their understandable frustrations.
The 158 has wheelslip protection. If you lose traction, the engine will throttle down for a few seconds until the driven axles are back in step with the non-driven axles on the same vehicle. It's likely to happen separately for each vehicle.
Years ago I had travelled on a class 158 down the WCML from Glasgow to Preston. That was certainly something
Odd, I travelled on 158s quite regularly in the 90s, and they always seemed to behave themselves. The few serious delays I remember were due to infrastructure faults.
The 158 has some of the best riding qualities of any UK rolling stock. The BREL series 4 bogies offer excellent ride in general. Even on bullhead rail it is composed.
I always liked them, despite working in Control exposing me to the vulnerabilities of the fleet. The engine sound was much sweeter than the 150/153/155/156 fleet and at 90 MPH travelling up the faster stretches of the North & West get a lovely melodious purr going. As built they were very comfortable, unfortunately the Canton fleet got "refurbished" at an early stage with the IMHO inferior Chapman seats.
Wasn’t the Chapman seating a Regional Railways ploy to actually make the other sprinters more attractive? It was definitely an upgrade for the 153/156, standardisation and all that.
I think with Canton the old 158 sets went into the 153's. The 150's and later 142/143's got their own version of the Chapmans which of course were an improvement over the low back bus seats.
Taking a look at the version control history there has been no changes to the Simugraph blueprint since release back in TSW3, the RVM (basically the simulation "logic" component) was changed before Preston was released to fix a bug that made 158+142 consists undrivable (brakes wouldn't release). That patch should already be in the game (TSW4). No changes to audio since April. I can't think of any reason why a core change would affect this, so my guess is either that it's WSP like Taihennami mentioned or the issue is "psychosomatic"
Yes, I was puzzled by the comment about poor ride quality. I’ve travelled many thousands of miles on them on all types of track across their full speed range, and the ride has always been good, and normally excellent. Maybe that particular unit had an issue.
Admittedly I haven't been on many, however the last time I went on one in August across the Settle- Carlisle I found it a rather rough ride, and have remembered similar experiences on EMT's. Perhaps I have just been unlucky with the units I got!
It must be really frustrating when you put all that hard work into creating a loco and someone makes a complete balls up of the timetable on MML, making it impossible to keep time.
It’s really sad. So much work into improving the scenery etc, and they ruined it all by replacing a realistic timetable with AI generated rubbish. I’ve stopped driving the route since the update.
