Riesa-dresden: Tips On Driving Freight Trains Realistically.

I have some questions, cwf.green, if you don't mind.

1. In the Bremstafel, there's a column named MBH. Am I right to assume that that means Mindestbremshundertsel?
2. Are there any (publically) available resources to find the maximum descending grades or do we have to refer to our route knowledge?
3. In your example calculation, you say
   
   How do I arrive at this conclusion? Is the gradient associated with the shorter pre-signal distance always the critical one or are there more factors this depends upon?

Any help is very much appreciated

 

Tutorial VIDEO could be helpful too

I simplified my procedure:
train weight >> locomotive (1 column), setting up the first 5 wagons (2), setting up the remaining wagons (3).

All in the same (train weight) colorful table row.
So for me, the only input parameter is the train weight from the game menu.

I do not understand these percentages or the difference between the weight of the train and the braked weight of the train etc
I can't handle these black and white tables /o\

 

I'm going to hijack the title a bit - another tip from more freight service realism - switch to the front pantograph when running trains with full Laaers auto-carriers. Not sure if it's mandatory, but it's done pretty much all the time to prevent bits of graphite from the pantograph and sparks from ruining the paint job and the first couple of cars.

 

Another tip concerning your another tip (couldn‘t resist, sorry ):
The same applies when pulling Zacns filled with dangerous materials or anything with a windscreen (cab car, other loco, etc) directly after the leading loco.

 

So all the doubleheaders on MSB have to run the front pantograph as well?

 

Yep. Usually, the leading loco has the front panto up and the trailing loco the rear panto up to ease the stress on the overhead catenary. In the outlined conditions, both locos would have the front panto up.

 

Well, that's something the game can't do AFAIK.

 

Pretty sure it can. I haven‘t played MSB in a few months but I distinctly recall always setting up the pantos as required.

 

I've tried to do that a couple of times, but the second loco always seemed to copy what the first one did in this regard. So I could've either had 2 rear, 2 front or all 4.

 

Just checked again and it works flawlessly. I lowered the panto, switched to front panto and raised the panto again. Leading loco has the front panto up and trailing loco the rear panto.

 

Yes. The brakes are still pneumatic (air) brakes! But with an ep system, the brake cylinders are actuated by an electronic signal, which is instantaneous, rather than the old Westinghouse system where the brake cylinders are actuated by a reduction in brake-pipe pressure... which can take quite a while to propagate, especially in a long train.

 

Although I can't envision a situation which would require that. The reverse, yes (lead wagon is a tanker or otherwise spark-sensitive), but not a front/rear setup.

 

That is the standard set-up for double-heading electric locos in Germany. As I said, it‘s to ease tension on the catenary by having as much distance as possible between the pantos.

 

Thanks to this thread and the whole discussion, role-play way of play freight services takes on new colors. Thanks, gentlemen \o/
Keep goin'

 

Ah. OK, I thought that rear panto was always preferred, except for fire-hazard situations. The reason would be that in general you would want the panto "knuckle" to the front with the contact trailing.

 

Are there no 'buffer' wagons for dangerous cargo in Germany?

 

Not at all necessary. Look at ICE3s for example, the last panto has the knuckle facing the end of the train.

Usually not, the trains are nowhere near as long as in the US.

 

No, we doesn't use buffer wagons. We use them only in some specific situation. A tank train or a car-transport train usually run directly connected to the loco. For the thing of the panto it is common to use the rear one when you are running. In double formation we use rear-rear too. The front one is used rarely. And usually when the loco runs in reverse

 

I will leave it up cwf.green to answer your specific questions. In turn I would like to concentrate a bit more on how the German system works.

I need to start with some basics:

The referenced brake chart from cwf.green is (as far as I know) the Austrian variant. The main difference between Austria and Germany is that in Germany there are only three distances between the a distant signal and the main signal, which are used to calculate required braking: 1000m, 700m and 400m. These distances may be up to 50% greater, however, this will never have an influence of the max speed allowed. The max track speed for 1000m distance is 160kmh, 700m 120kmh and 400m 80kmh.

The only reason for a greater distance is pure convenience, if for example two main signals are 1200m apart from each other, you just plug the distant signal for the later main signal on the mast of the first main signal. Hence you save another mast and some other stuff.

If one wants speeds above 160kmh you need to adopt a different signalling system, like LZB, ETCS l2…

Now coming back to the brake topic. The brake charts in Germany only differentiate between those three distances. Here is the example for braking distance of 1000m:

Here you can easily see what brh is needed for what angle of track and for what speed in what brake setting. Again, there are the same tables for 700m and 400m (as usual, if interested, pls let me know)

It should also be mentioned that for areas with very steep track angles there is a whole RIL (465.0001), covering special procedures for these stretches of track.

 

Thanks a lot! If you have access to the other brake charts, I would be very interested in them
I also looked up RIL 465.0001. A very fascinating read! If anyone else is interest, it can be accessed here.

 

I do have one question for you in this case.
If the German brake charts don‘t differentiate between 1000 and 1200m pre-signal distance, then that would eliminate one of my questions:

Does this mean that I would need to use 1.1% for calculating vmax on Riesa-Dresden?

 

Those charts are also available on the net, somewhere. I don’t have the Link at Hand and I am not at Home at the Moment but will post them later.

To be honest, this system is obviously quite old, nevertheless, has proven viable over the years. Nevertheless, I am not 100%certain that with the new possibilities of issuing digitally time tables for each train, if longer distances are nowadays taken into consideration, however, I do not believe they are! Maybe someone more knowledgeable then me can tell us?! If you do it manually, you certainly take those charts! And yes, you are only looking at the gradient. Is it 1.1% on Riesa - Dresden?

 

Here are the other two:

And I found a mistake in my original post: 700m allowed 120kmh and 400m 80kmh. I’ll correct this I my earlier post as well…

 

Thanks for the tables but I'm a bit skeptical regarding what you said about distances above 1000m not being taken into account.

On the avoiding line (that has about 100 freight trains a day running across it based on what I've been told) it has distances of 1200m pretty consistently and grades up to 1.1 percent. The older line has the usual 1000m distances but lower grades (up to 0.6%). If a pre-signal distance larger than 1000m cannot be taken into account then freight trains on the avoiding line actually would have to travel slower than on the older line even though safety-wise they should be able to travel *faster* or equally fast due to the longer pre-signal distances.

Maybe you are right that this longer pre-signal distance has no effect on the Vmax/MBrH but it seems like a waste to design the route with longer distances in that case.

 

It was always considered to be a weakness of the German system. Then again, we are here in the east of Germany, where it may have been different. And also, as I have mentioned, time tables are today generated digitally, it may take it into consideration, I am simply not sure. I don’t think so, though…

 

Just talked to a friend, who is a train driver. He has confirmed that longer distances are actually considered for gradients, but he wasn’t sure how they are calculated, however, noted that it is probably interpolated. He also only knew the brake tables I have linked.

Topic is complicated…

 

It is indeed. But it‘s incredible how much I‘ve already learned just in this thread! Thank you both, cwf.green and OpenMinded for sharing what you know

 

With computer algorithms you are "allowed" to take many more variables into account since lowly humans don't have to decipher the tables

I have a question regarding the tables you provided. It looks like the Bremsart G row disappears above 80 km/h, does this mean that the same rules apply for GPR (seems unlikely) or that BRA G simply only allows 80 km/h or lower? Or maybe some other explanation?

 

I seem to remember from somewhere that all-G-mode consists are limited to 80 km/h

 

Yeah, sorry, didn’t mention this, did I G allows a max speed of 90. I don’t know for sure, but I believe this is historical. Brake type G used to be limited to 80, the brake tables I have access to are old. The values will not have changed, however, were expanded when the max speed was raised to 90… You will have to interpolate if you want the values for 85 and 90, sorry

Also, I noticed a working error in the table. There is quite a big and obvious mistake in one of the lines of the 400m table (hint: 65kmh, 1:1000, G). These tables were only the basis for the official values DB used (will be the same, though), however, they are the original tables coming from the main brake developer, Knorr.

 

I have certainly pushed my knowledge throughout this discussion as well

Even though I have access to people who drive these trains, I often get the impression that even them only know very often the basics of the whole story. Not quite sure if cwf.green can confirm this as well, or some of the real word drivers on this forum, but it really seems like an endless story and you would probably have to talk to the people who actually develop these systems, in order to get really thorough answers. After all, a lot of this stuff is very theoretical and the people driving the trains are often only dealing with the surface of the system.

The table for brake type for different weight and lengths of trains I provided is another such example. I know for a fact that there are trains out there which are definitely running in completely different configurations and strictly speaking in complete violation against the associated RIL. However, they are and the answer why they are, can probably only be given by the people directly involved in this specific operation.

I am actually an aerospace guy, working in that field all my life and have come to more or less fully understand this system quite well. It’s a completely different world, compared to trains. To me it seems that the aerospace world is so much easier, as it is so strictly regulated and hardly leaves any grey areas. Complete contrast to the rail sector, which is obviously also highly regulated, but leaves much more grey areas. At least it seems to me. And this is what makes this sector so interesting for me, as I can keep learning something that simply interests me. Maybe, one day, I will find out that rail operations are as easy as aerospace operations…

Again, all very complicated, indeed

 

Agreed. Full system operation is great if you know what you are doing. Some of know our own railway systems intimately for the country we live in. But we need to remember others don't. I think Dovetail needs to do a lot more with the training. To take a beginner or novice through how each system works be it German, American or British. I love Matts online tutorials, But I think some of this should be included in game Via tutorials.

My conclusion is maybe the DTG guys are not fully conversant on all railway systems like ourselves. and maybe this is where they need to take such information in to make a better experience. Maybe they do but are not very good at conveying the experience across.

Also you can go too deep and make it unenjoyable for the lay person.

 

Oh boy, your first paragraph really resonates with me. When hunting down the information regarding the BR143 I was in contact with two BR143 drivers and at many points what they were saying was conflicting. I don't blame them for giving conflicting answers either because my questions were very technical in nature and usually outside the scope of what they are taught. The questions were probably better asked to the engineers at LEW Henningsdorf or Knorr-Bremse

Only when I got my hands on the actual manual and component diagrams was I able to confirm what was right. An example that might be applicable for aerospace is, if I wanted to fully know the logic of an Airbus airliner fly-by-wire system or something esoteric like the torque of the electric motors that control the elevators, how the side-stick deflection is mapped to the torque and their maximum position rate of change maybe these are not the right questions to ask of a pilot

 

Except for the working my whole life in aerospace bit (before covid I was on track to get a PPL - but that's definitely off topic), I can relate to that a lot, not only that, the system is so much standardised and "open" to the outside, you could fairly easily get official documentation in english without too many hassles if you know what to look for (and it's not too in-depth and specific), in contrast a lot of railway-related documentation is much harder to find and is only available in the native language of where the system is based.

About the rest of your message, In Italian documentation it's written to leave the P-G switch in the position where the load master (I believe it's the correct translation - the guy that is responsible for loading the wagons and then assemble them into a train) leaves them. Then the train driver gets all the relative data (Braked Mass, BrH, max speed, etc...) so it can feed this data into our safety system and will be used for all the performance calculations (braking curves, max speed and such).

Thanks both you and cwf.green, I learned a lot as well

 

And of course there are compromises made because this is a game. For example- switches to turn safety systems on and off? Nope. IRL there would be breakers, of course, but these have seals which can only be cut by maintenance or testing personnel under higher authority. A driver who disabled one would be sacked immediately.

 

I forgot to add something. I have a passenger train "Fahrplan" for the route. On the section that includes the avoiding line, these are the passenger Mbr:

Mbr für 110 km/h = 85 R/P,
für 120 km/h = 103 R/P,
für 140 km/h = 143 R/P,
für 160 km/h = 187 R/P.

For 110 km/h and 120 km/h the Mbr line up with a gradient of 0.7%, for 140 km/h the gradient that matches the Mbr is ~ 0.25% and for 160 km/h no gradient matches. This leads me to believe that the table might be inaccurate. *or* the Fahrplan accounts for longer pre-signal distances.

For the older line (best I could find was Dresden Hbf - Coswig - Meissen) the Mbr are:
Mbr für 110 km/h = 78 R/P,
für 120 km/h = 96 R/P,
für 140 km/h = 139 R/P,
für 160 km/h = 176 R/P.

These Mbr line up with 0.2%, 0.3%, 0.2% for 110 km/h, 120 km/h and 140 km/h, respectively. For 160 km/h again there is no gradient that matches. On the old line (afaik) the pre-signal distances are 1000m so the discrepancy cannot be explained by the Fahrplan taking into account longer pre-signal distances. Maybe there was a change in the mapping between Mbr & gradient to Vmax?

EDIT: An interesting aspect regarding the passenger Mbr is that the Dosto-trains all have enough BrH to travel at 160 km/h *if* the Mg-brake is functioning. If the brakes instead drop from R+Mg to R the BrH is approximately 150 which only allows 140 km/h.

 

One more thing I did not mention was that those tables are only applicable block brakes. As the discussion was around cargo trains obviously they have more relevance in this respect then with modern disc or MG brakes, or most modern passenger trains, in this respect.

Also, regarding the Dostos, there are still some older generation Dostos out there (ie DABpbzfa764, DBpza752), which have a Vmax of only 140kmh, as they had no Mg installed in the first place.

 

I tried this with the BR 155 and it doesn't work. But it does work in the 185 though.

 

It does work in the 155. Lower the panto, operate the switch in the machine room, then switch on the transformer.

 

I am working on a spreadsheet to automatically calculate brake settings, PZB class and Vmax from train composition and track parameters, using the information given in this thread.
Does anyone have a current brake table (1000 meters) in a format that allows copying the numbers into a spreadsheet? (Atm my sheet works with an old table I found on the internet, but the values seem to be outdated).

 

The table I have posted above is quite old as well. Trying to get hold of newer data at the moment, would appreciate if someone would have data available, though…

 

I had a similar idea, but I am interrupting the work that has not yet been started, appreciating your dedication!
I'm looking forward

 

Also applies to the Chemical and Oil Trains on Riesa-Dresden Zacns wagons. Needs to be used on RRO and Main Spessart Bahn Aschaffenburg-Gemünden

 

Good work! Unfortunately I don't have access to the Vmax for different BrH (or Mbr for different Vmax), for freight trains, on the route. If that changes I'll for sure share them with you

 

I never answered your question before.

Fortunately for the current version of the timetable the example trains I listed in the OP should cover each of the included train. The trains in DRA are automatically set up as P-brake on all wagons if the train weight is below 1600t and G-brake on all wagons if the weight is above 1600t. You still need to change the brake setting on the locomotive if the train weight (listed in the briefing screen) is above 800t. This automatic setting of the wagons misses the edge cases where LL should be used but as it turns out there are no such trains in the current time table so the automatic setting of the wagons brake settings works for all trains (how convenient, wink wink).

So basically, if you want to drive the trains realistically, the only thing you need to do is to check the train weight and if it is above 800t you set the brakes to G in the locomotive and then use the corresponding example train in the OP to get the PZB Zugart and Vmax. Technically the Vmax might be slightly incorrect due to the issues brought up earlier in the thread but it will most likely err on the side of caution.

 

Just one tiny addition, if the whole train runs in G, PZB mode will automatically be set to U…

 

I wondered, does this also apply if you *could* set some cars to P, but leave them in G (for convenience) or if (don't know if that is even possible) the train has only five cars and needs to be run in LL formation?

 

Technically all the information needed should be in the original post, described in the example trains, because the example trains just so happen to be the exact trains that feature in the route

The only thing that might be erroneous are the Vmax values but if they are incorrect it's probably just 10 km/h difference. You can get away with driving the Habbiins train at 90 km/h on the route and still stop in time (even if IRL 80 km/h might be the actual Vmax).

Maybe I'm misunderstanding your question but if you are asking whether it would be possible for a train of 5 wagons to have to use BRA LL and thus be all G by coincidence then I think this is not possible. The reason for this is because the train would have to weigh 1200t with only 5 wagons which makes the weight per wagon 223 tonnes

 

Agreed, just because you know that you are driving in U, you do not know your max speed! The comment was only directed at the mode itself

 

In addition to what cwf.green has already said, if your time table tells you that you are running in P but you opt to set everything to G, you will have to set PZB mode to U, to stay in line with regulations. IRL it would probably be a good idea to request a new timetable, at this point, as it may have other implication on your route. I know that often when timetables are requested, they are published in G and P, and the driver can select which one is appropriate that day. At least this is true for Germany.