Let me begin by saying I am relatively now to the game and am struggling a little to enjoy the game on a PS4, the manual telling me which keyboards keys to use to do things doesn’t really help. (Playing f40 on corridor) 1. What exactly is the point of the automatic brakes? A few videos I watched the person would move it to LAP when getting ready to stop, then bump it to service to actually slow the train, and would move between the two to control the slowing of the train. When I try this on the PS4 the train continues to slow drastically when I move it back from service to LAP...the online manuals do not seem to explain the different braking positions 2. I have started with the peninsula corridor and am struggling with the F40. From time to time I seem to get it stopped and then can’t get it to restart... I have tried resetting the PCS, I tried restarting the engine, no luck. The train sits there and my AMP’s show 0 but nothing I seem to be able to do can get the amps to restart, as if the engine is off but redoing the quick start guide gets me no where 3. While the interior of the F40 is detailed, there are a bank of 6 lights that I cannot find any explanations to them and some are too hard to read... blue button. Red button looks like PCS OPEN, next button looks like SAND, then 3 more under that.. orange button, lit up yellow button which says SPEED, and then a lit up green button which says something closed... can’t find any documentation to explain these buttons Any help would be appreciated
1) Automatic brakes apply the brakes on the whole train, rather than a locomotive brake which applies only the brakes on the locomotive, giving you more braking force and passengers a smoother ride. On the F40, there's 3 main positions. These are Release, Lap, and Service. Service will continually apply more braking force until the brake lever is moved back to Lap, which will then hold that pressure until you either add more or release the brakes. You shouldn't need that much pressure to stop the train, although judging when and how hard to apply the brakes is a key skill of the real job. 2) You're probably moving the throttle to the STOP position instead of notch zero, which is easy to do. I don't know the recovery sequence for this - maybe someone else could help? 3) The 6 lights are Wheel Slip, PCS Open, Sand, Brake Warn, Zero Speed, and Doors Closed. Wheel slip tells you've applied too much power and the wheels are slipping and not moving the train forward as quickly, which can also cause (not simulated) mechanical problems if the wheels spin too quickly. PCS open means that there's been a sudden drop in brake pressure, and a valve will open to stop the train in the event something like the train splitting in two occurs. Sand means exactly what it says on the tin - you're applying sand ahead of the wheels, which increases the amount of friction and is used to control wheel slip. Brake warn does nothing. Zero speed again does what it says - if your speed is 0, then it lights up. Doors closed is used to tell the engineer that they're ready to move off because in real life, there's someone in the coaches operating the door with a key instead of you up in the cab with a menu.
In addition to Railfan722 above... The brakes don't have "different braking positions" on many older units, instead having apply, lap (maintain) and release. So to apply the brakes you obviously move the handle to the apply segment, what we would call "braking harder" now simply applies the brakes faster. Setting to lap maintains the braking you have now so you can set a very gentle brake setting then put it back to lap which maintains this, very handy for going downhill and maintaining your speed Release is apply in reverse, so the further from lap you set it the faster the brakes will release The best bet on this is to find the braking gauge and play about with it to find your best "slow brake", "stopping brake" and "emergency brake" pressures.
...some real nice info here, especially for folks new to the sim- thanks for posting this. I myself had a heck of a time early on with accidentally shutting down the engine via the throttle- then had to find/learn the procedure to fire it up again. Was frustrating until I figured out how to work the throttle more carefully.
