Br 401 Afb Speed Control Relies On Air Brakes Over Regen Braking

Hi everyone,
I'm getting used to the BR/ICE trains and experimenting with the AFB on a BR 401. I'm pretty sure regen braking is working, but for some reason the AFB relies on the air brakes to slow down. This is especially noticeable going down a hill, as it will cycle the brakes to about 2 bars of pressure and release them repeatedly. It works but causes the main reservoir to drain, and seems unnecessary - it only uses the tiniest amount of regen braking. I thought these trains relied on the regen braking more? Any ideas why it isn't being used here? (FWIW, this is in the scenario where you have to shuttle a single engine to a broken-down train.)

 

I think in reality you can switch between E-Brake and Air-Brake and combined with the one Brake-lever you got but AFAIK it's not implemented

So yeah, good question though

 

There is a button on the right under console there you can change between air or electronic braking.

 

Thanks for the replies hyperlord and Xander1986 !

I've just reloaded into a save of that session, which led to the train doing some kind of emergency regen brake, so at least I had some kind of confirmation that it's working! I had to fiddle with the various systems to get it back out of that state and moving again, so that was fun.

But I think I found the switch you're referring to - the Braking Operations switch? Looks like it's been set to Electronic the whole time. And as I was traveling, for some reason it is still cycling the air brakes to maintain speed. Very odd.



Edit to add: As it's slowing down now, it does definitely use the regen brake. But it seems to behave more as if I was using the train brakes handle myself, rather than an independent regen brake.

 

Yeah thats the one that i pointed out!