I'm late for every stop with the Class 380 as I am never prepared for that initial braking, then coast slowly to the platform: I need a 314 to keep to time Bug fixes are always welcome.
Anyone driven the 380 since the update? The brakes don't feel any different to me. Also, general feedback. There's passengers waiting on platform 2 at Neilston - after all these years still not removed. Got bored of submitting tickets on that one. And at Newton, still getting passengers stuck at the stairs and also in the platform.
Yeah I don't feel like there's any change either. 2% brake is enough to pull the train up at the end of Bishopbriggs after hitting the platform at 35
Have to concur, the brakes feel no different to me - still put your nose on the windscreen at anything over 8% which means zero fine control at the bottom end of the curve, if you just want to feather the brakes going into a speed restriction or descending into Queen Street without the lurch of applying and releasing. Definitely more work needed - if there was a nerf seems to have been very low scale.
I feel we need to speak to some real life Class 380 drivers. In a way I find the braking characteristics horrible but believable. My understanding of large heavy vehicles and braking comes from experience driving buses. I was shocked to learn why it often seems like bus drivers are very rough with the brakes convinced that I would do better; With service buses built around the 2000's a retarder engages like a on/off switch when touching the brake pedal and with no air brakes applied at that point; the force is ferocious! The logic behind systems like this are to enhance braking performance and reduce component wear which on a train means rheostatic braking. I am wondering if some units may have a similar crude implementation of braking like the buses retarder where as soon as any braking is requested, you get full rheostatic before anything happens with the air. Traveling as a passenger on Class 380's when heading to North Berwick for regular sea swims, I have noticed that speed reduction does feel a little more sudden than with most units, especially when compared to Class 385. I have also noticed for instance when the train departs Drem and slows to 25 for the paintwork into the North Berwick branch that the braking always feels urgent like the driver is having to work with a similar system that which I hated on many of the buses I drove. Technology is better at blending braking system now but I'm thinking that the Class 380's are not the latest units in the fleet.
As the 380 is another variant of the Siemens Desiro I'd be surprised if the braking performance is substantially different from that of a 350 or 450.
