Been trying to will myself for months to try cargo and freight in tsw as I choose to confine oneself to pax and love it now must say! With the 66 what is the difference between the direct and automatic brake. Which one should I use for different situations etc. And on the display in the cab of the 66, do I need to know anything else other than making sure the brakes are cut in and what exactly does that mean: that they are functioning and on? Cut out implying they are isolated?
Direct brake is only the loco’s brake, automatic brake is the entire train. You should only ever use loco brakes when you aren’t hauling anything.
Direct brake is for shunting and coupling etc. , usually on the mainline even light engine you would use the automatic brake since "mostly" the direct brake bypass the wheelslip protection.
Cutting in the brakes basically makes them active/usable. If you cut them out you won’t be able to release them
What's the practical difference? Why are they sometimes cut out (therefore requiring changing to cut in)? Clearly cut out serves a purpose
You can only have exactly one brake valve active (cut in) on a train at any one time, otherwise you'll run into situations where you're trying to apply the brakes on one valve, but nothing happens because another valve is active and trying to release them at the same time. That's obviously very dangerous, so it's vitally important that all brake valves except for the one in the cab that you are using are cut out.
With the US trains and class 66 ..always set to cut in or make sure it says cut in if its a scenario that it soupposed to be already set up..make sure also your engine is set to lead and banking comms on ..the newer engins you set cut in on the IFC screen s ac4400sd70acees44 es44c4 Hsp46 the older US diesels SD40 2 GP38 2 etc you set 2 valves on control stand cut in you set to freight or passenger and the other valve to lead ..each locomotive s in game has a toutorial on how to set these all up if anyone needs a refresher on how to set up..there are many different train s to remember how to operate if i havent run a certain one for a while i just re do a toutorial to refresh my memory or watch a youtube video on how to run correctly