How much power is given to the motors. If adhesion is low, you should use the one that isn't default.
Would it also help with the ultra-slow sections in the depots? Holding the thing under 5mph is tricky
In a real 72 stock train, the shunt position on the master controller should only allow you to get to about 5mph, it's got the most resistances switched in and should barely get the train moving.... tho eventually it could get upto about 8 mph... but it should take ages to do so. but once you've gone past the sunt position to series or parallel, it will keep accelerating if you put it back into shunt.... this was sometimes done deliberately from series to shunt, to get a smoother ride up inclines with a speed limit by drivers in the day, as the train 'notched up' slower, these old trains were pretty jerky when notching up, and that got annoying for the driver... if not for the passengers too. rate 1 should be 'painfully slow acceleration' handy if starting in a low speed restriction area. in real life it was sometimes needed if your train had overly sensitive door interlocks, accelerating from a stand too fast could cause the door mechanisms to 'open' ever so slightly and trip the interlock (they were mercury tilt switches) then you lose the 'blue pilot light' and the motors shut off.... the sudden loss of momentum then makes the door mechs close fully again and re-arm the door interlock, (we're talking a millimeter or 2 of movement in the 'door engine' mechanism here, the doors don't actually open when this happens) You'd then need to 'wind' the controller handle anti clockwise to reset the pilot circuit... then reach up and select rate 1 and try again... switching to rate 2 once you have got going and the acceleration is not so harsh.
Rate 1 is "low power" and makes for smoother low speed driving, especially in and around the yard areas. Rate 2 is "high/normal power" and is the default for expediting your egress from stations after loading up the cattle. Rate 1 is also useful if it's wet and slippery on an incline and you struggle with wheel slipping since the notches for power can be too high when in Rate 2 and lead immediate wheel slipping. Rate 1 with the lower power setting means less power to the wheels and thus less likely to start slipping.
found this on TfL website: The 3 traction positions Shunt, Series and Parallel refer to the resistor banks that the power passes through to reach the motors. Shunt being the slowest as the power passes through all resistors meaning a lower voltage reaches the motors. Series is the next step up, here the power passes through a large resistor grid configured “in series”. Parallel is the final step, here the power passes through a smaller resistor grid configured “in parallel”. Shunt & Parallel steps have intermediate stages which are controlled automatically to give a gradual application of power. also this on Reddit: "Defines how power is applied to the motors in the train. "Shunt" is literally that - for shunting so it applies power to get the train moving but only weakly so it doesn't gather much speed. Series means the motors on each carriage are put into series with each other (so the electricity comes from the positive rail to one motor, then the second motor, then out to the negative rail). This provides more torque to get the train moving off but this limits the speed of the train. Parallel is used when the train is moving along fairly fast, and puts the motors into a parallel circuit (so that the electricity comes from the positive rail, into both motors at once then into the negative rail separately from each other). This allows the train to move faster but there is less torque to accelerate the train as fast and doesn't provide enough torque to get the train moving from a standstill." in some tutorial videos, it said that Shunt should get to around 5 mph, then Series to around 15 mph and Parallel to full speed... but for some reason, in-game the Shunt and Series positions dont make much difference, or I am just doing stuff wrong? Edit: tested both variants, both Bakerloo Line and WCML versions of 1972 stock (even tried to change Rate 2 to Rate 1, tho I am not sure if I did that correctly), and Shunt and Series are almost identical in most situations, for some reason... or I am doing sth wrong ... I mean, Shunt should be only to get moving, then super sluggish to low speeds, and in-game it gets you to 10 or even 15 mph no problem, and Series does almost the same, barely pushing more than that... like yeah, mostly you be doing Shunt to get moving and then slam it into Parallel, but I am sooo curious as to the use ot Series
the thing is, I always notice these things kinda late, cos I tend to return to older routes sometimes, like now I checked it out cos I kinda liked how part of Bakerloo was integrated into WCML... so I did also proper Bakerloo, a couple runs, and noticed that Shunt and Series are almost identical I guess they were kinda like well, most ppl wont notice since once you get moving, most ppl just go straight to Parallel, so they dont notice stuff... but I got OCD tendencies, hell, I do NOTICE ... so this kinda goes into that category "chill down man, this train has this and that quirk and you have to deal with it for the time being" cos yeah, the explanations I have found make a ton of sense, but in-game it is done kinda eeeh ... I even tried that method when trying to get that middle ground of power with Series that I went from Parallel to Off and then quickly back to Series, and the power was almost the same as Shunt, so that didnt work now that this stock (1972) has got more attention to it (I assume more ppl get into it thanks to it being fairly well done in WCML), I have a tiny sliver of hope they tweak the handling a bit
