Clinchfield scenarios are overall pretty good, Limited Power being truly amazing (as long as the other F7 does what needs to be done. But can someone tell me the goal of The Setup scenario? You take an SD40, cut portions of a coal train... and put it back together on the other side of the yard in the very same order... Couldn't you just pull the whole thing? It's even downhill or flat all the way, so insufficient power is not a case. The moves in the scenario are fine, but basically, nothing happens to the consist.
agree with you. i used to be a shunter many years ago. i would have done this differently. after moving the fisrt cut. why not run round the the rest of them and push them to where they are needed. it seems to me they are making unnecessary work and probably unnecessary memory
Yeah this was a very weird scenario since nothing was done but moving the consist from 1 yard to another, it would of been better if we had to at least make 2-3 trains out of the 1.
Must admit I got about 40 minutes into this earlier and was beginning to think, what's the point..? I suspect it is to give experience of yard work, throwing manual switches etc. but all I was doing was using the "9" plan view to set the route and "8" to do any uncoupling, not getting out the cab per se. Billed at 110 minutes, it's really too long and as there is no coal loading, it doesn't contribute much to the mastery either.
That's probably it. Not dissimilar to a switching scenario in SPG which had a similar MO. The SD40, with 3,000 hp and 6 axles, is not the best choice for switching duties in my opinion, even though it's designated as a road switcher. We'd be better off with a GP7, or better still, an SW7 which I think were still being used in the early 80's.
Or NW2's. However these days SD40s frequently are used as switchers, since they're considered rather underpowered for road engines (and even the newest are 40 years old). Given the size of the cuts moved around the big yards, 3000 is not too many ponies! Still, I think that for added variety of gameplay, if DTG do a DLC loco for this route the GP7 would provide the most flexibility (and some driving interest, since all but a couple of CRR's GP7s didn't have dynamic brakes!) (BTW, for all the Official Line is that the period is "early 80s," it can't be- CRR had no active F7s by then. In-game the dates of services are 1975-76, when they aren't 2021)
Running this again as for some reason it seems to have slipped out of my completed Journey. It really is a rather masochistic or should that be sadistic scenario to throw in there straight after the SD40 "training". Could really have done to be about half the length. About the only thing it is good for is inflating your AP and therefore route/loco rating for Clinchfield.
