Hey, guys. I have a question. If you select a service, then pick the F7 youll see two services at the top. CRR Extra 3010 and 3012. If you play these services you'll see you have two sd40's behind you at the end of the train. My question is is how to set up a DPU with the F7, because you can't get up that grade, it's obvious DTG put those two sd40's there as helper units. You can also see this train pulling into the yard on CRR 93 Northbound manifest using said dpu's. Thanks for the help dudes!
DP didn't exist at the time of Clinchfield. They certainly had helper engines- that goes back to steam days - but DTG somehow failed to implement it as they did with SPG. The only workaround, for now, is to use either the Ctrl + and Ctrl - keys to 'teleport', or use the flying 3 camera, to drive the helper pair yourself.
I don't think this will ever be fixed, because the most that MP promised was to get it right the next time. DP is rarely needed in CCB, so we don't know when the next time might be.
Come to think of it, let's hope it is implemented in CCB, to make that route somewhat future proof. It might be needed if we ever get a consist editor or additional scenario packs.
A lot of the options for the CRR locos in scenario planner have helpers and are currently unusable. It will probably be fixed when CRR comes round to Adam’s team.
Probably. The only thing that concerns me is that the CRR locos don‘t have the same style of radio as the SPG ones - it probably won‘t be quite as simple to fix as on the C40-8W. I guess they‘ll just put the banking comm prompt over the general are of the CRR cab radio.
Interestingly, the SD40 radio has interactable buttons, although they don't do anything. The F7 has the same radio, but it's purely visual.
I ran into this situation recently. I ended up using the '3' camera (press '3' twice to jump to the end of the train), moving the camera to look into the drivers side window, opened the window and adjusted all the controls manually. Using the extra power was required in order to get that loaded coal train up the hills heading south. Just don't forget to switch to dynamic brakes as soon as the trailing locos clear the last tunnel.
I'm sorry, but this charade is farcical. In a real life situation, an engineer is not going to "fly back" to the rear helpers. The absence of DP controls ( which are themselves a necessary fiction) makes those services that call for it, unplayable, in my opinion. It's not fair, it's not fun and, for the average player (which means most ), it's not doable. The lack of even a whiff of a fix is, in my view, unacceptable. (Sorry for the rant, something I almost never do, as y'all know)
In terms of rants, that's very mild. I feel pretty similar and I think that the service is effectively impossible for most players. Historically there would have been an engineer in one of the rear helper units and probably communicate over radio. Similar to how they did the banking comm in newer locos, having a radio work as setting up DPU control would make it at least possible to complete, even if not 100% accurate. Having full independent remote control would be great, even though that would add immensely to the control complexity. It was nice to be able to keep the helpers at a low power notch over lesser grades and adjust the lead locos power to keep a consistent pace over the changing grades.
