I been playing around with various Steam Locos, mainly LMS and Flying Scotsman, I've found a couple things: The braking performance seems to be really off. Running 8 Mk1 carriages for example and applying breaks seems rather quick, but no real braking action happens without loading the brakes up well above 55-60% of combined brake. Steam Pressure seems to drop really quickly for minimal Regulator / Reverse Gear. Using 2 LMS Steam Loco's, as a double header, pulling out of London Victoira with reverse at 30% and regulator open at about 15-20% that was gradually brought up, lost 1/3 of steam pressure within 10 -15 seconds. Further to the Steam pressure, I have found opening the fire box door seems to bring this up for no real reason. I am assuming a limitation at the moment because of free roam and maybe the 'Firemen' not acutally working? Firing is set to automatic. When using a top and tail Steam formation, Say one Steam loco facing one direction at the front of the train and the 2nd loco facing the other direction at the back of the formation, brakes seems to not want to come off completely. Having tried playing with the Small and Large ejectors in various formats on both ends. Using a LMS + Flying Scotsman together in an arrangement seems to also cause a brake problem with them not releasing.
Vacuum brakes generally don't play nice because they can't be isolated like air brakes in more modern locos - so if you have multiple vac braked locos in a train you probably have them fighting each other. Some locos have multi unit and top-tail support (the ones in Peak Forest plus Flying Scotsman only I believe) so you can use that to achieve some better results perhaps. If you can provide more detail on the formations you're using that would be helpful. Thanks Matt.
The "passive" configuration for vacuum brakes in steam locos is with the ejectors (both small and large) switched off and the brake handle in Release. This should not be difficult to set up. In diesel locos, put the brake handle in Shut Down as usual, and set the brake mode to Vacuum so that the loco itself will brake in response to the vacuum level.
I've been mainly using the LMS Jubilee Class steamers, both with double header at the front and using it in a top a tail format with various MKI,II class carriages. I have done it once with a LMS Jubilee and a A3 Flying Scotsman. Do you mean to put the "non driving" Steamer with both ejectors open or closed? I haven't tried with a diesel loco yet. Have you tried this already?
The "passive" setup is what you should use for locomotives that should not be in control of the brake. The locomotive you drive from (ie. at the front of the train) should be set up in the normal way.
I seem to find now that even with suggested setups the trains just will not move, Looking at both Steamers in a End-to-End Configuration, Both loco's gauges show brakes released.
