Hi Is there a PlayStation controller button that you can use to use the straight brake found on the locos in the preserved collection maps like WSR for example. Or do you have to use the cursor and use the straight brake by the slider? Also forgive my ignorance but what exactly is the advantage of the straight brake over the normal brakes? I’m assuming it brakes the train stronger and quicker?
Use the square button to cycle between the different brakes and then use the left bumper buttons like you would for the automatic brakes. My understanding is straight brakes can apply quicker as they’re only on the locomotive while the automatic brakes run through the whole train which is why they can take longer to apply. However, it’s not really effective for stopping or slowing a long train cruising at speed. It’s more effective to supplement the auto brakes by using it as you near a point you want to stop after you’ve already used the auto brakes to slow you down.
The train brake brakes the entire train, where as the straight brake just brakes the loco. Think of it in the same manner as an articulated truck and how the driver can brake the trailer when the suzi lines are hooked up between the unit and the trailer for the air brakes. Without them connected, just the unit brakes, which is a one way ticket to jackknife city. You'd struggle to jackknife your train, but the train brake gives you more braking control. It reminds me of quite a famous urban legend about a trucker who found that he'd lost air on his rig back in the 1960's. We've all heard about the legend of Jesse James and John Henry, just to mention some names, but there was also a truck driving legend of a driver in the deep south of America called Beauregard Darville, or Bo for short. Back then, every gear jammer knew his name and with his reputation for fearless driving exploits, it was said that he had a foot like lead, nerves of steel and ice water running through his veins. Anyway, he left Atlanta back in '63, hauling a load up to Tennessee. By the time he hit Monteagle, it was raining cats and dogs with it coming down so hard that he couldn't even see the passing lane. He started down the grade there, but missed a gear. Naturally, he hit them brakes to slow the rig down, but found that he had no air when he pumped the peddle. Now the Monteagle grade is notorious for being quite steep and long and everyone who saw him coming down it about the speed of sound thought that he was a gonner. Fighting for control, his truck jackknifed and ended up spinning completely around, with a number of eyewitnesses swearing that he had his head hanging out of the window, shouting for people to clear the way the way. Disappearing down the grade into the murk of rain and spray, people were later astonished to see that he'd made it down the hill, safe and sound. Being the cool cat that he was, when folk asked Bo how the hell he'd managed it, he told them that when the truck picked up too much speed, he just hopped out of the cab, ran alongside it and dug his heels into the ground. His later life was surrounded by controversy, with him being linked to a county lines bootlegging operation and battling with members of the Texas law enforcement community after being suspected of kidnapping the fiancé of a Texarkana sheriff's son, who appeared to have suffered Stockholm syndrome during her time with Bo and even ended up marrying her alleged captor. She did leave him in the end, but Bo's life continued to take a downward trajectory from his days of going for glory riding 18 wheels, with him becoming involved in producing adult video tapes in the 80's, running and financing an Indycar team in the 1990's and becoming the commissioner of a backwater town in Georgia in the early 2000's until members of the local community exposed him for corruption surrounding the unlawful requisition of privately owned land with the intention of selling it on for strip mining to an open cast coal mining company. The last I heard, he lost most of his fortune from his glory days and died a couple of years ago. I digress though. Train brakes brake the whole train, straight brakes don't.
It’s too bad he wasn’t going the opposite way down Monteagle (towards Chattanooga and Atlanta), then he would’ve been “Eastbound and Down.”
That could have made for a cool story, but Atlanta was behind him now and after tipping his load in Tennessee, he was Texas bound and flying with a ticket for the wind, flying down the highway heading west, in a streak of black lightning they called the something or other express.
Doesn't seem that the 21st century has much room for characters any more. Lurking around rail drivers' forums, I read rather a bit about "colorful" figures from the BR days, whose like will not be seen again. ------------------------------------ In US terminology it's the "independent" brake, which describes it quite well. On UK trains is it actually what is (at least here) termed a "straight brake," i.e. direct air pressure without a Westinghouse failsafe?
