Hi, just got the fabulous F7 Empire Builder. There's one thing I noticed. When you're idling, even on downhill grades, the train is slowing down. I found the Locomotive to operate with 90 psi on the brake pipe, whereas the passenger cars operate with 110 psi. This means the brakes are never fully released on the cars - because the engine cannot fully charge the brake pipe. I've provided a fix, if you want use it and tell me if you find something unusual I'd be thankful. I've changed the according values for the reservoirs, maxpressure and brake cylinders, leaving charging and release rates as they were. The F7 is updated to passenger mode 110 psi. (In reality you'd use the cut-in switch (Off-Freight-Pass.) The zip includes a backup file of the original file. Please try, I find it to work well. If you notice something, let me know please.
I'm pretty sure it's because the drag on the passenger cars is way too high. I think that there's a mod that fixes it somewhere on Railworks America.
There is no parameter for "drag" as you describe. The friction and weight values are normal, in fact the passenger cars are ok. Like I stated, the "drag" is an effect of brakes not fully released as I've explained in detail. My fix works fine. I took the pressure values from the P42. Edit: There is indeed a DragCoefficient. But the value of 7.2 is common and also used in the P42 pack. I'm not aware of an RWA fix but if it adresses the cars it is not correctly solving the issue. Btw what puzzles me most is when you clearly show what is wrong and back it up by explaining the technical background, solve it and then somebody says "I'm sure it must be something else" without explaining... sheesh... RWA also has a fix for the Ohio Steel / Fort Kent black walls. It does work, but by removing allegedly broken cars instead of just adding them to the RouteProperties' blueprint preload section.
Don't be confused by this: Marias Pass / Race for Shelby The Equalizing Reservoir needle (left white) shows too much. This is an A-B-B-A consist and it happens in the default engine too. On an A-B-A consist it displays the right value of 110. It seems just to be a cosmetic thing, the brakes work as expected. (Right gauge never worked) There is some engines who have the same issue when MU'd. Not serious, but interesting anyway. I noticed that too on Hauling the Harvest Grain, where sometimes the brake pipe displays stays at 0.0 even with brakes released. Seems to depend on the MU/DPU setup of the consist. Have a nice day, and Peace!