I was driving an RE50 service on DRA and wondered if it would be normal to 'bother' increasing speed for the ~2km where the avoiding line meets the mainline around the chemical plant. As a driver I would know that there is an upcoming 120 kph restriction shortly and I was wondering what the standard practice would be here? There is a similar situation for Seaford services on ECW where you reach a 60mph limit coming out of Lewes and then around 1 mile down the line have to drop down to 40mph for the junction down to Seaford. Are you always expected to run up to linespeed as a driver if you can, and does it make a difference if you would make up time you lost earlier to keep better to timetable over such a short distance?
The max speed is the permitted speed. The driver is responsible for driving and can choose to use a lower speed. I agree some speed limits are chosen poorly. Safety first, no overspeeding and keep control over the train always should be priority, not driving as fast as allowed.
Driving 2km at 120km/h only takes a minute so that alone makes any possible time saves irrelevant in my opinion. I would just keep driving at the same speed, similar to how I don't follow LZB speed increases unless the path is actually clear.
Thanks, that makes a lot of sense both for a driver and passenger. Also I'm assuming you just use the afb lever to limit the LZB target speed, I'd never thought of doing it but that does make a lot more sense than the constant speed-up and slow-down when chasing another train.
Lowering the power is a better way of preventing the AFB from speeding up a lot when driving under LZB. I set the power so that there is a gentle increase in speed rather than using max power and speeding up too much only to then get another brake application.
Just as a minor note, there is no LZB installed at Dresden, both irl and in game. However in the circumstances where you can run using LZB (such as around Munich or Köln), typically as a driver you can set the AFB lever all the way forward once the bell goes off. The thinking here is that you won't have to manually move the lever, the train knows its target speed at all times. It's up to your discretion as to how much power the train can use to achieve its target speed, personally I like setting the throttle to around 50%. Note that whatever power setting you choose will not affect circumstances in which the train has to decelerate in order to be under a speed limit; it will follow the braking curve, and usually this means that it'll utilize some rather hard braking through the electric brakes. For passenger comfort, you could slow down ahead/before of the braking curve (which is indicated by the red G), using a lower brake setting. Again, this is up to your own discretion as a driver, but I personally like setting the train brake to notch 1b, or notch 2, which should be more comfortable deceleration. Regarding the first post, as always this is up to driver discretion. Ideally you dont want too many changes in your velocity, thus affecting passenger comfort. But if you're running late according to the schedule, then taking advantage of the short increase in speed could indeed prove useful. Its all up to you as a driver!
For DB, it’s less about comfort. Constant accelerating followed by braking when you could also coast at a lower speed is obviously incredibly energy inefficient - something that DB is very careful to avoid both for cost and PR reasons.
Thank you all for the great info and advice, both about the original question and moving onto LZB That certainly makes running with LZB way more interesting and involved - I'm looking forward to giving it a go on Köln later
In the real world, there are so many different types of driving techniques so it’s impossible to say this is what a real driver would do. For example, let’s say there’s a speed drop of 125mph to 100mph. We have drivers that are happy to shut off power 9 miles away and let the train coast down to 100mph. Yet there are a few drivers that are happy to wait till as late as possible and give it a full service brake application. Both of these techniques are opposite ends of the bell-shaped curve. The vast majority of drivers would probably do something in between (e.g. use step 1 or step 2 on a 3 brake step train). Of course, what you decide to do might not be the same each time and could depend on the circumstances. If you’re running a couple minutes early, coasting might be a good option but not so if you’re running late. If it’s raining, you might decide to brake a bit earlier, etc… No not necessarily. These higher speeds over short distances are certainly not going to be the difference between being on-time or being late. Chasing time (I.e. trying to make up time when late) is highly discouraged especially in this day and age as it puts you at a much higher risk of an operating incident. As soon as you get cautionary signals which you nearly always do at some point in the journey, time goes out the window.
