Still a novice, 100 hours on Sand Patch and Pennisula corridor.. I'm wondering what to expect or how to improve speed going uphill on Sherman Hill. Going westbound, with a 1.2 - 1.6m long/8-12k t load, I seem to avergage between 26-31 mph. Is this normal? Or is my conifg wrong or perhaps I'm using the throttle incorrectly when begining uphill. Starting from a timetable setup, I setup the front lead unit, and leave the rest of the front trails alone (My understanding is they're all good to go?) I then make sure the rear trail unit is setup in trail/cut out mode. Then I slowly rev up and release breaks and am at throttle 8 when at about 10 mph and moving. Once the grade increases I can usually only reach about 26-31mph when the grade is above .8 Any tips/advice?
Perfectly normal speeds for Sherman Hill‘s gradients. You‘re not going to get any faster uphill with these trains.
Welcome to heavy freight railroading up steep grades. It is a welcome change to see some accurate physics in the game that reflect how thing really are.
What are your expectation driving 10.000 tons train going up on a 1.5% gradient, i pulled 11.000 tons manifest train with 4 SD70ACe's, and only manage to achieve 15 mph on westbound climb. This is 100% accurate for Laramie Subdivision.
Welcome Patticus Finch the advice you've been given is exactly right, 31mph is actually kind of impressive for the tonnage . Remember when you're heading down the 1.5% gradient to keep your speeds low so that your dynamic brakes are fully effective and you've got room to move if you start to get a runaway situation and can do something about it. About 25mph is the right downhill speed. If you try to run at the speed limit you'll end up all over the dirt someplace . Paul
I can control a 11,000 ton train at 30mph down the gradients, whether that's realistic and prototypical I don't know
The OP was going up the grade at 30mph. With the excess power the trains have on Sherman Hill I reckon you'd be fine at 30mph assuming all your engines are running and all have fully functional dynamics. The game generally overpowers the trains.
I never understood this, how comes the dynamic brakes get less efficient at higher speeds? I though they only lose efficiency the slower the train gets.
To be fair - I was running *right* at the tip of the curve - I missed concentration looking at chat for a moment and at 33mph I could no longer manage the train on dynamics. If I was doing this in real life, i'd be giving myself a bit of a buffer and doing more like 25 as suggested, remember this isn't a race Safety before Speed
At higher speed, the traction motor produces less braking force, same thing happen when you accelerate the train using throttle, the traction motors produces less pulling force as the train gain higher speed.
To clarify my earlier remarks, I did not say go down a 1.5% grade at 30mph with 10000tons+ cannot be done - I said to start down that grade at 30mph is a problem. Unless you have the brakes already set correctly, you will be out of control before the brakes can bite. IRL, if you have a significant transition from climb to descent, you would have a 'fence' on the controls (AFAIK not available in TSW2 at the moment) and have the front traction group(s) braking and the trail group(s) still pushing to control both start speed on the downgrade and stress on the couplings.
Right. The idea is to summit well under, and then as you descend gradually let speed build in a controlled manner, but never let gravity get the bit in its teeth. Starting at 20 and easing it up to 30 isn't the same as starting at 30!