How do you suppose a Rear Brake Pipe indicator in the lead loco knows what the rear BP pressure is? I recall from Clinchfield RR there was a BP pressure indicator in the caboose. That makes sense but other than Clinchfield I have not seen any other cabooses. In a Multi-work consist which includes loco(s) at the rear, I suppose the lead-rear loco could measure it. But then how would that information get back to the lead loco? I don't know anything about the radio link sending directions from front to rear. I have not (so far) gotten the sense that it is bi-directional re: information passing. I mean I have not seen a "link OK" indicator. Only thing I have seen is click on it and pray. For consists where there is neither caboose nor rear-loco, then what? Yet here I sit, driving my 4400 with no rear locos and no caboose- and my Rear BP indicator is reporting data. I love a good mystery.. have a great "Off Topic" day.
Take a look at the back end of the train. You’ll see a box shaped device attached to the rear coupler which is blinking red and hooked into the brake pipe. This is called the EOTD or EOT (end of train device) and transmits the rear brake pipe pressure to the HOTD (head of train device) in the front loco via radio signal. That’s how you get the rear brake pipe pressure reading. Don’t read anything into that. Proper modern DPU operations via radio remote control are not actually simulated/implemented in TSW. Instead, the banking comm is a simulation of the lead engineer talking to seperate crews in the rear DPUs via radio (the old fashioned way of controlling DPUs before radio remote control).
Thank you ! Great information. I think the old school human method would be a good scenario for multi-player functionality. Though I fear, even the best of friends may not get along so well after stretching and banging those cars back and forth for 40 miles. I'm sure it is not easy. So, back to the "Off Topic" topic, in the live human DP case, did the rear loco driver ever mess with the auto-brake? (train line air break). smoke is coming out of my ears trying to figure out how things would work with two or more brake controllers on the same pipe. I will try not to be like my grandson with the rapid fire questions -- but I got a bunch of them ..... Again, thank you.
The rear crew could initiate an emergency brake application if the situation called for it, but normal service applications were done by the lead engineer exclusively.
Exactly. There is one brake pipe for the whole train, so only one brake control stand (the lead driver's) is active.
