Fastest way to find the right training is: to the trains > pick a train > training modules > select the train you want
Just looked. Can't find anywhere the 47 tutorial at all. Even searched all the trains. Not showing up
Would love to echo people's points regarding neutral sections appearing on hud. Been driving a night time service and been caught out multiple times with them..the darkness doesn't help at all
If JT are still watching this thread, would be interested to hear what (if any) plans are in hand for a bit of optimisation? I know it’s not their fault DTG can’t bottom out the core issues but if these issues can't be sorted then it takes the edge off buying the Class 86 pack when it comes out.
I find the neutral section signs stand out more at night as they are reflected if you have the headlight on. Just driven Carlisle as far as Lancaster (saved to finish off later as have to get to work) and I didn't miss one. In the day time, I look for the signs that are wider than the catenary mast, the only ones that are, are for neutral sections. Since I realised that, it's so much easier to spot them now.
The tap changer should run down as the train comes to a stand. A rheostatic brake is not functional when the train is stationary. The correct behaviour can be seen at the end of this video, on arrival at Watford Junction: Note the way that the Driver increases the brake shortly before the train comes to a stand, but the tap changes does not run up in response - it continues to run down. The fact that the JT 87 behaves incorrectly also affects starting on a rising gradient. You should take power before releasing the brake, but you can’t, because the tap changer is run up in response to the brake being applied. So you have to release the brake, wait for the tap changer to run down, and then take power. But by the time the tap changer has run down, the air brake has also released, so the train rolls backwards before you can take power. The solution is to hold the train on the loco brake, rather than the train brake. There’s nothing wrong with that - and it was often done in reality - but I suspect many users of TSW never touch the loco brake, so there will be some learning of new keys/buttons to be done! I also believe that (unlike on the JT 87) on a real 87, if you have the power handle in ‘Hold’ the rheostatic brake will not operate. It will only operate with the power handle in ‘Off”. I can’t find any videos or documents to prove that, though, so I’m happy to be corrected. Edit: found one! Watch the below video from 22:40. At that point the train is coasting, with the power handle in ‘Off”. Shortly afterwards the Driver moves the power handle into “Hold”, and applies the brake for a TSR. You can see from the ammeter that the rheostatic brake does not apply. Why the Driver does this, braking only on the air brake, I do not know. I know that rheostatic brakes had a tendency to cause wheelslide (we used to isolate the rheostatic brake on Class 90s during autumn for this reason) so maybe the Driver was concerned about that, in the snowy conditions. Anyway, it proves the point that the rheostatic brake should not function with the power handle in “Hold”.
I guess only time you would use the loco brake is when doing the ecs services or moves to sidings as a light loco.
With ECS you’d need to use the train brake. Potentially with a light loco you might use the loco brake, although the train brake will still work when running light loco. At my company there was an instruction that when running light loco you should still use the train brake, not the loco brake. This followed a SPAD where the Driver misjudged the braking using the loco brake, which has a different feel to it compared to the train brake.
Thanks for digging out those videos - saved me a job! The reason why you can't take power with the train brake applied, besides JT's flawed implementation of some aspects of the rheostatic brake, would appear to be the presence of the power / brake changeover switch which sets the power circuits up for rheo brake if the automatic brake handle is placed in an application position. The AP version models this correctly I believe. More info in the BR Driver's manual page 91 here:Locomotive Repair Books, Record Cards, Manuals and Driver's Handbooks. - AC Locomotives
On another note, trying 1S07 0018 from Preston to Carlisle. Apart from the fact this is an overnight train formed of Mark 3 day coaches, which should actually be a mix of Mark 3 sleepers and Mark 2 (probably aircon), the schedule seems unachievable. Timed to take 73 minutes non stop for the 90 odd miles but the train speed has been capped at 75 MPH. Overnight trains were actually timed at 80 MPH for comfort reasons and in normal circumstances drivers would adhere to this. So the speed cap on all the erstwhile overnight trains needs changing. In addition the stock was permitted to run at 100 MPH and should the train need to recover time for some reason, the driver was quite in order to exceed 80 MPH where line speed permitted. So not sure how easy it is to reflect this on the timetable but either the timings need changing or the permitted speed increased to mitigate late running without losing AP for speeding.
General question - do any services use the north curve out of the Morecambe branch? I know in real life it presently receives a parliamentary service (1 per week at around 6am iirc) but not found any in game yet. Obviously realise this could be correct for the era.
One other incidental observation, having arrived at Carlisle 10’ late with previously mentioned 75 rather than 80 MPH speed cap on the overnight train with no sleeping cars! On arrival at Carlisle, observed a freight being hauled by a Class 47/4, ETH. Same issue as on Blackpool, this would have been most unlikely in reality. ETH 47’s a fairly rare commodity, tightly diagrammed on passenger workings and overnight receiving maintenance. Freight should really be worked by Class 47/0 or 47/3 sub classes.
thanks all. Did the early morning ECS run and was a really nice one starting from round the back of Steam Town, very enjoyable.
If any of you are on pc and have WCML south and the mods from JetWash and friends including the timetable by fawx, the class 87 layers in. I have been using runs on this route to get comfortable with how the tap controller in game and my Rail Driver interact.
Haven't got this route. Does the Xbox series S work well in terms of performance from Preston to Carlisle. Thinking about buying the route
Driving 47 and been lots of fun. But one thing I don't know about why it's happening is the audio. When I was speeding up on the 47 underneath all the engine noise was the distinct sound of the 87..it sounded just as if I was in the cab of the 87 when accelerating. Very odd.
Odd. I’ll have to try that. Could be the general sound distortion thing, but I haven’t noticed it quite so much with rougher sounding diesels as the smoother (or should be smoother) electric traction whine. Still a good route but IMHO now the initial glitz has worn off, it does seem to have more than a few underlying issues that JT need to tackle, particularly if they want to sell us the Class 86 pack.
I drove 6M24, the pair of 87s on steel freight CAR-PRE. Firstly before I risk losing JT's attention, the service wouldn't complete on its own. I was held two signals outside Preston with 2P43 sat in Preston at a green light not going anywhere. It should be the 08:53 PRE-CAR but I was there around 09:30. I had to delete it to free everything up and complete the service. Now, apart from that it was an excellent run with two 87s bossing nigh on 2000 tons of steel. I lucked out with two of the more esoterically named engines: Hal o' the Wynd, and the beast that is Wolf of Badenoch. Watch out as it can be a right handful down Shap if you're not careful. Also around Oxenholme, and make sure to scrub off enough speed before the neutral section there. I ran it in late January and got a gorgeous sunrise through Lune Gorge. It is always nice to get an unexpected red to stop at but not really if the thing is broken, which put the dampers on an otherwise-excellent run. A couple of postcards for the memory
Unfortunately, this seems to happen quite a bit on this route. I think I have seen a red light bug appear on about 50% of the services I have run (most not affecting my service but sitting at termini, sidings and stations en route). The most recurrent problem seems to be the AI 08 shunting services that either do not shunt at Preston and Carlisle or I had a service at the southern depot at Carlisle that wasn’t moving and had the message “awaiting coupler” on it. I do understand it’s a complex timetable with complex workings but some of them just seem to fail quite regularly which is a shame.
Yep. Also blackpool branches. Going to do a troubleshooting post later about it. But was running an 08 service shunting coaches around Preston (something I actually find really enjoyable and satisfying)
I'm not really convinced by these videos as I can only see the ammeters and can't really make out the position of the tap changer itself. Although I do think it makes sense what you're saying about the rheostatic brakes when coming to a stand. So I decided to scour through the BR manuals again. The manual doesn't really say much about the behaviour of the tap changer in relation to rheostatic braking when slowing down. The only things it says is that the running up of the tap changer is controlled by "the brake actuator, which responds to an air signal taken from the proportional brake relay valve air line" (whatever that means). In any case, it is controlled by the position of the automatic brake handle. It does say elsewhere that the rheostatic braking effort decreases at low speed, but it doesn't say whether this is due to the tap changer actively notching down or purely due to the physics of these electric motors and circuits. With respect to starting on an incline, the manual states that the straight air brakes should be used to hold the train while taking power. This suggests to me that the automatic brakes should be released before taking power. I'm also not entirely convinced about the point you make regarding the power handle needing to be in the off position in order for the rheostatic brakes to apply. In the video you reference, you can see that he has the power handle in off when coming into Oxenholme at the end of the video. However, the rheostatic brakes still do not apply. I think the rheostatic brakes in that video are just completely isolated. In other videos by the same uploader, you can see that the rheostatic brakes come on while the power handle is in the run down position. See for example the following video right at the end when coming into Warrington Bank Quay: The BR manual says that the only requirements for rheostatic braking are that the automatic brake handle is moved at least into 1st application and that the tap changer has run down to zero. It doesn't say anything about the position of the power handle. (As an aside, the 87 has some extra circuits that allow some rheostatic braking effort to be applied when power has been shut off, but the tap changer has not run all the way down yet, but let's not get too far into the weeds for now).
That should be the sound of the traction motors, diesel electric locomotives (so basically anything other than Hydraulics and direct drive) have TMs, the engine generates electricity which them powers the Traction Motors causing the wheelsets to move and voila, it moves They can be quite loud, depending upon the locomotive class and the condition of the motors. When I first started on the footplate IRL I was taken aback by how loud they actually are in comparison to the engine noise (unless your window is open of course).
I am meaning the 47 is a diesel loco and sounds claggy is best way to say it. The 87 sounds nothing like the 47. Maybe you were or are confused? Maybe it's my wording lol. But the 47 plays 87 traction sounds on top of 47 clag
Remember samuelpower2001 that the 47 is a diesel electric drive so it has traction motors powering the wheels. DTG is using the traction sounds of the 87 to replicate this.
To simplify it, the class 87 and 47 both need electricity to run their traction motors to move. The difference between them is simply where this electricity comes from. The class 87 gets it from overhead wires via its pantograph. The 47 uses a big diesel engine to turn a generator that generates the required electricity.
Interesting - thank you for the additional research. Yes, I do agree with you on both counts. The rheostatic brake in the Penrith-Oxenholme video appears not to operate regardless of the position of the power handle, suggesting it's isolated, as you say. It makes it even more puzzling to me as to why the Driver very deliberately moved the power handle from 'Off' to 'Hold' before commencing braking - something he doesn't do anywhere else. Still, that's a side issue. As you say, in the Warrington-Wigan video the rheostatic brake appears to be functional in 'Run Down' which suggests it's probably functional in 'Hold' as well. On the question of the taps running down when coming to a stand - yes, I take your point that it's possible the ammeter runs down, but not because the taps are running down. I scoured the other videos to try to find one where the gauge showing the taps themselves was visible during braking, but I couldn't - the lighting just isn't good enough. I've been messing about on WCMLOS holding the train on the straight air brake rather than the automatic brake on rising gradients. One thing I noticed was that, after coming to a stand, applying the straight air brake and releasing the automatic brake, if you then switch to a camera showing the rear of the train, you see the rear coach move a few inches backwards a couple of seconds later. I remember that happening in reality when Drivers used that technique, due to the brakes on the coaches releasing and the couplings loosening. I remember more than once seeing passengers taken by surprise when they were stepping from train to platform, and the coach suddenly moved!
Timetable service in the Class 31 - 1Z31 Hardendale to Carlisle. It spawns me to random locations, off train. Oxenhope then Preston on the second attempt. Have to jump to Hardendale and get on the train before AI takes over. When in the cab have to acknowledge taking the service. X Box Series S.
I think this is about right: South of Carlisle North of Penrith Tebay South of Oxenholme South of Morecambe North Junction In between Lancaster and Preston
471473021_929940755904931_6875693813369748851_n by maccagee#4924 posted Jan 4, 2025 at 8:21 PM I can't remember where I got this, it was either on these forums or one of the Facebook groups. It's very handy. Edit: Michael McClelland is the person who created it.
I think I have discovered the cause of this bug. 1. After spawning in a random location at the start of the service, open the route map and jump to Hardendale Quarry using fast travel. 2. Now walk towards the main line and you will see that your train is there waiting in the siding. 3. Notice that the AI driver of the train is sitting in the wrong cab of the locomotive. So I think what is happening at the start of service 1Z31, is being as an AI driver is already in the locomotive of your train (albeit the wrong cab) the game does not know where to place the player, and dumps you in a random starting position instead. Something obviously went wrong in the timetable scripting.
There’s a nice service with the Class 47 hauling Turbot wagons from Carnforth to Preston that is drivable but does not seem to appear in the timetable menu, and I couldn’t see any services that would connect to it at Carnforth. It’s 7F63 at 17.28 and to drive it you need to spawn at Carnforth and then walk to the yard. I didn’t check every variation of Class 47 in the menu so it could be there under one of them but wasn’t there in the few I did check.
Interesting, as far as showing up in the tt, no it doesn't since all class 47s layer into the same tt and it's just not there. I walked over to it and got running, once I figured out it is a vacuum brake set up. I am American and don't know which cars a vacuum and which are not. Got to the station and decided will do it later, since I forgot to plug in my Rail Driver.
I had forgotten the Turbot wagons were vacuum braked as well at first. Luckily there’s plenty of time to get to the first stop point so it didn’t affect my run too much, and I’d been through quite a long process of tracking down the starting time of the service already. I’d seen it pulling into Preston whilst running something else and wanted to run it next and that’s when I found out it wasn’t listed in the menu, so did a bit of detective work on it, spawning on foot a couple of times to find it was already on the move and having to start again a bit earlier each time.
stujoy, if you have an idea where the service in question is located, using the 2D map find it and hover the cursor over it and you will get everything you need to know including start time, that is how I figured when to spawn on foot.
