I've invested a lot of time in driving the Harlem Route. I'm trying to drive as realistically as possible and could use some feedback. What would be a good throttle notch progression starting from a station stop? I've watched some cab ride videos and it appears very smooth yet it's hard to tell what speed the trains are going at what points... such as starting off and coasting into the station. For station stops I've been trying to be around 39mph at about 400 yards. Then I use the first notch of braking and often release to coast around 18mph and then reapply notch 1-2 to stop. I'd love to hear some feedback about anything to increase realism in driving the Harlem Route. As a side note, I did learn from a cab ride video that the driver will switch the headlights from bright to dim upon entering the Park Ave tunnels and GCT.
I usually start off driving at 30% throttle then move to 40-50% around 10-15mph, that feels right to me. I don't have any pointers for station stopping since all the stations are different lengths and I'm still getting used to the M7a braking power.
Thanks, that's about what I'm doing. I am using the accelerometer as abit of a gauge. And ya, the stops really do vary. Though the M7A has excellent brakes, I'm really trying to glide to a comfortable stop. I'm usually braking a bit earlier and needing to coast but that's just how I drive all routes.
If you watch a cab ride video you can sort of get the feel of how much to notch up and braking at stations. I find it helps me. And I'm really impressed by this Route. It is pretty close to the real thing.
Depending on the station I’m usually approaching around 30-35mph and begin braking with about 20% brake force (sometimes increasing this around the 30% range if I’m not feeling confident). Approach stations quick (since the M3/7a have good braking) and use light to medium braking and try not to coast slowly.
I am not too familiar with US trains and Harlem lines, but I'll give a few tips that I learned from Germany which should be applicable to every part of the world and have helped me to drive in what feels a more realistic manner: Try to use as few power as possible: Drive efficiently The goal is to maximise the amount of coasting, trains have a lot of inertia and very little rolling resistance, this can help: Rapid accelerations and decelerations* You don't always have to reach max line speed You don't have to arrive early, aim to arrive on time, perhaps giving yourself a 1m/30s margin of error, arriving early means you drove too hard for no reason *When departing from a stand still, first start applying just enough power to move forward after a few seconds feel free to accelerate as hard as you want, this will minimise strain on the couplings. When stopping try to reduce braking at lower speeds and try to get to a standstill with a minimal braking setting (I reckon about 10/15%) - some EMUs like the german BR423 will do this for you, not sure about the M7, this minimises chances of wheel locking and results in a much smoother stop. For british trains it's a standard procedure to only use step 1 braking at the lowest speeds. For braking you also don't want to always use 100% braking force as that is not nice for the passengers, it's not completely unreasonable, on the S-Bahn using 80-100% of the braking force is not crazy, but that is almost a subway, so I reckon for Harlem about 70/80% braking should be fine? Another general tip, try to move the power/brake handle as few times as possible, example accelerating out of Brighton on BML the limit goes 20>45>70>90 but the speed limit changes are quite distant, so I just set notch 2 to go from 20 to 70 and then notch 4 to get to 90mph, similar thing for the 60>45>30 reduction near London. Not sure if there are any similar cases on the Harlem Line. Keep in mind with a real handle you can be smoother compared to controlling it with the controller.
This is all great advice. I try to keep in mind what I heard Sam say he had been told by Matt, "it's a (speed) limit, not a goal". I've basically been working on the smoothness of braking. It's very much a timing thing and is most difficult on the local services, as you have such a short distance between stops but you are kept to a timetable. There's also some interesting placement of stop markers which may or may not be true to life. As well, there are a few short stations. Passenger comfort is definitely what I've been thinking about. In this sense, the M7A is driven different than I've seen people drive the LIRR's M7 (though that's likely something to be fixed in preservation crew update). That's an interesting point about braking in S bahn trains. I have frequently thought "what is going on with passenger comfort in Germany?!"
I see it has been pretty difficult for me as well, a thing that helped me is at first trying to always use a constant brake force, and then adjusting the braking point, until you get a feeling for the correct speed/brake setting/distance combination. This is easy-ish on the german routes as the km post help a huge lot but I remember being a lot more difficult with the Class 395 on SEHS for example, and I am still somewhat struggling on BML and ECW as I've forgotten a lot of the braking points. As an example with the BR423 on SKA I've found that with ~100kN braking at ~700m at ~120km/h leads to an almost perfect stop so you can slightly adjust given your route knowledge and current speed. As I said, try to use always the same braking effort at first (and adjust when near the station) to at least "fix one of the variables", it could result with more overshoots and undershoots at first but I've found to be more effective long term. Also recording one of your runs and watching it back to see where you should have braked earlier or later can be helpful if you have the free time.
