Class 31/1 Brakes Possibly Too Slow?

I find the train brakes on the Class 31 to be super slow is this normal?

 

Yes it's normal, the Class 31 is over 60 years old.
The brakes are very tricky and challenging, but i like it.

 

forget what I said I found out airbrake goods makes the BC release really slow

 

That's sort of the point actually. The Goods setting apply and release the brakes much slower than passenger timings because they are intended to use with very long/heavy trains. If the train is very long the front of the train will be braking while the air pressure signal has not yet reached the rear of the train. This means that the rear of the train is basically "rear-ending" the front.

I don't know how much slack there is on European "buffer and chain"-style couplers but over a long train there will still be some, plus the elasticity of the whole train. All this means that it can be very dangerous for the rear of the train to be unbrakes while the front of the train is braking. That's why you use Goods timings, the brakes apply so slowly that the brake propagation time across the train doesn't matter as much anymore.