Been dipping into Maintalbahn in the past few days, wanted to try out the freight. But every time I couple up to a freight formation either I can't get going (because the brakes just never fully release) or after a few minutes of driving I just slow from around 35kph to a stop (despite not changing anything). In the latter example, after decoupling to see if I could reset the brakes, and despite the direction being set to reverse, I accelerated forwards significantly. Something's really not right, but I can't work out what. I've never pushed the train brake past Driving, since I know from research that can cause issues - so whatever this is, it's not that. Any ideas?
Is there a brake key you need to enable? Some of the German traction has these, some don't. Hand brake applied? Generally I have also found the 363 brakes to be very overpowered, even the lightest application seems to stop the train like it hit a wall.
I checked the handbrake definitely wasn't applied. Was wary of doing anything with the train brake other than leaving it in Driving, because if you overcharge it while coupled to freight it basically never gets back to zero. The loco brake was fulling off. Agreed on the sensitivity. I've not enjoyed the experience of driving the 363 even when not coupled and not having the brake issues I've outlined above, but I'm sure as with most locos, the more practice, etc.
I assume you waited until the compressor stopped working? It takes ages for the 363 to pump up a brake pipe and the compressor stopping is a good sign that the pipe is on 5bar. If it happens despite that, it would seem like the brakes are stuck if this was real life, in which case you’d need to overcharge the pipe to equalise the release pressure. Not sure if stuck brakes are possible in TSW though. Yeah, that’s weird. Almost sounds like the brakes are creeping on but I have no clue what might be causing that. If this is what I think it is (the lone 363 lurching forward when uncoupling), that’s been happening ever since they changed the buffer physics for SoS. It seems the 363 is coupled with the buffers fairly compressed and that tension releases rapidly when uncoupling.
Yeah I waited for about 5 minutes, the BC reading stopped decreasing at 0.8 and never went any lower. Before restarting the service I tried overcharging, but the BC reading always went back to 0.8 afterwards (and even up to 1.4). Knowing about the risks of overcharging while coupled on the 363, after restarting I left it in Driving the whole time and just used the Direct brake to control speed. But after coupling, once again the BC never went below 0.8 - so after about 10 minutes I cranked up the throttle and outpowered the brakes, getting up to about 35kph. After about 1.5 miles or about 5 minutes, I started slowing (even though the BP and BC readings were unchanged, and I was actually on a downward slope). Even at throttle 10 I eventually slowed to about 5kph. Very odd, really. I'll give it another go.
Something else I've noticed is that even at the start of a service when uncoupled, reverser in neutral and no throttle, the wheelslip indicator comes on and off and if you watch from the outside, the loco is vibrating weirdly (and the wheels will stutter every so often without the loco moving).
So trying the service again, and I did nothing other than the following: 1. Master key to on. 2. Changeover pressed. 3. Reverser to forward - then when the wheelslip indicator came on (despite no throttle) I put it back to neutral. Wheelslip indicator continued to go on and off anyway. 4. Waited for the 2 minutes to elapse. 5. Put the reverse in reverse. 6. Set the train brake to driving, and released the driver brake fully. 7. Started accelerating forwards at some speed (despite zero throttle and reverser set to reverse) reaching 24kph before passing the red light. Now, I'm no train expert, but I don't think this is working as intended.
Unfortunately it it is there since some derailment/buffer issue patches in TSW3. The earthquake trembling and wheel slip is there even from TSW2 on (some patch that tried to fix SoS issues, yay ...) To me it looks like all wheel rod driven locos are affected. The Class 08 behaves the same. Derailment / Buffer Block .
It was already on this. I tried switching to the other one (shunting I think) and back, but it made no difference.
I guess the BR 363 Will not be fixed anytime, I tried this loco today, and then remembered why I hadn't been on that route for a long while.
