German Electric Railways "neutral" Dead Zones

I know it's supposed to be "authentic" and all, but running into dead zones and areas that damage the pantograph on electric routes really make me not want to use them at all. Are there any routes where this isn't an issue? Generally I prefer diesels (or steam) so this isn't an issue, but I've been trying to branch out to explore more of the game.
This really puts a damper on the fun.
So far electric has just been a pain in the ass and the opposite of fun.

 

Most older TSW routes don't have neutral sections. RSN, MSB, RRO, HRR are all fine.
But 'areas that damage the pantograph'; I'm not sure what you mean by that. Neutral sections are simply small sections of overhead line where there is no power. Your train can easily coast through it as they are usually strategically placed to not run the risk of stranding.
And if you do encounter one, all you need to do is to use the 'Close Circuit breaker' button after you've passed through it. You will hear a click/bang type sound (the breaker physically closing) and you can re-apply power and continue on your way.

 

How would neutral sections be so annoying? There are signs pointing out that they are coming, so it shouldn't be a huge surprise.
Ref: https://www.sh1.org/eisenbahn/snze.htm
All you have to do is to open the MCB and then close it once you're past the entire section. If you forget it, all you need should be to reclose the MCB and reapply power.
It's not that big of an issue, since the neutral sections are placed such that you usually pass through it with decent speed (to prevent you from getting stuck), so you shouldn't be too busy while dealing with the neutral section.

 

Well there are often red lights that come up (3 times so far for me) that make you stop in a "dead zone" to wait for traffic.... therefore you can't just coast through. Maybe it's just bad luck with red signals, but it definitely is a game killer to be stuck in one and there's nothing you can do but restart.

 

Can you name some locations?
Basically, other than in emergencies, trains shouldn't ever need to stop in a neutral section (e..g due to signalling / station) because the tracks would be designed that way.
Are you really sure you're stopped inside a neutral section? They are quite short (it's just two electrically separated sections)

 

Be careful not to come to a stop in a neutral section. They are never directly in front of a closed (red) signal, so you should always be able to coast through them and come to a stop later. If you do however come to a stop in a neutral section and don't want to restart the service, you can use free roam to spawn a helper locomotive (e.g. a BR 204 or 365) to pull your train out of the neutral section, delete it and carry on with you service

 

That's true. But it actually happened to me once because of an emergency break. Well..Skill Issues, i'd say.

 

Alright, let me see about recreating it. Don't have any video capture though, but could take a picture.

 

Also, neutral sections don’t damage the pantograph. There usually isn’t anything in the wire that the Pan has to interact with (unless it’s a section insulator but that’s something different anyway). A neutral section is just a section of catenary with no current, the most you’ll see is an arc.

 

How do they separate the live wire from the neutral wire, if there's nothing physical that the pantograph would hit?
Would arcing over a neutral section not cause current to flow from one side to the other? I imagine they are there to keep different circuits different, and if electricity were to cross over, it would overload one of the circuits. Am I wrong?

As for the OP, routes that don't have neutral section include Schnellfahrstrecke Koln-Aachen, Schnellfahrstrecke Kassel-Wurzburg, Ruhr Sieg Nord, and Main Spessart Bahn. There are probably others that I have missed. Why not have a go at these?

 

You separate with section insulators, model differs depending on the type of voltage or country but it does the same work. I saw somewhere on some countries they even lower the pantograph and not just open the MCB, even though it’s totally normal to lower the panto if you switch between different voltages.


These section insulators can also be used to separate different chunk of sections, for maintenance and to avoid shutting off a huge portion of line, it’s not just used for neutral sections or voltage changeover. It can be found on switches as well to separate two tracks being energized by the same sub station so you can neutralize one track instead of two.

 

There is just a piece of "wire" from something that is not conducting, depending on what the voltage system is, it can be as short as few dozen centimeters. The pantograph slides over it just as with the regular wire. Most of locomotives have some sort of undervoltage protection that trips the main switch when the voltage drops too low for safe operation (or in this case, is missing completely).

You can leave the protection to trip it for you, but as that's not really nice behavior towards the loco and its parts, you should turn it off gracefully/manually ahead. While it should not do a lot of troubles if you do not have throttle lever in power position, there are other systems that may suddenly turn on at the unfortunate time that draw some current (typically, air compressors).




(Wikipedia.de)

If you are thinking about pantograph damage, you are probably thinking about lower pantograph sections, but those are more common in DC systems. In some cases where arcing two sections would be very dangerous (typically arcing into a section where people currently work on the catenary), sometimes a hooking device can be set up on the catenary that will intentionally destroy the pantograph that was forgotten in raised position ahead of the section isolator, before such arc can happen.

 

Always found it strange that in the UK you simply shut off power and coast through the neutral section, whereas in Europe (or indeed on that Trans Siberian game thing) you need to put the circuit breaker back in or even drop the pantograph.

 

Isn’t that done by magnet in the UK ? I mean the MCB is opened and closed and it’s triggered by magnets, so the driver just have to coast and do nothing else ?

 

I believe so.

 

Especially in DC systems, you need to have neutral sections every few kilometers and each country has a network spanning thousands of kilometers. The control magnets probably cost thousands of euros to place and maintain, it makes no economical sense if ten euros worth of static parts and pressing a button can do the same thing. In many systems (typically trams), it does not even trip the main switch, you just go off throttle and cover the lights and stuff from battery for that one second.

 

Well, the neutral section on RSN, that I know, is somewhat a kilometer behind Finnentrop towards Lennestadt-Grevenbrück (around km 63, I think), so, one may suspect that DTG back then chose the endpoint of RSN to avoid modelling a neutral section... ^^, while you can ride the whole section of one electric circuit....

 

All Pre-TSW 4 AC routes besides Riesa - Dresden have no neutral sections

Edit: And Edinburgh - Glasgow

 

And Edinburgh to Glasgow.

 

There are still sections where it is necessary to lower the pantograph. There, if the command is not obeyed, the equipment on the locomotive and the power supply of the line may be damaged. I remember that a freight train turned off the electricity in the vicinity of Prague like this.

 

most of neutral sections work as they should, but they dont work correctly in Free Roam... from newer locos tho, OBB 1116 Taurus doesnt recognise neutral sections, so there you have to pretend and just do IRL procedure even if the game doesnt force you

I have recently been playing Dresden Riesa a lot again, and there is a short neutral section near Glaubitz, and it works fine