I am rookie here. For the sale i bought both the base game and the SEHS (with the 465s of course) and LGV DLCs as i have a personal connection with all of them. Just one issue with them is: For High-Speed Trains, are there any tips or tricks on how to decelerate before reaching a station (i.e. do i wait for the newer, lower speed limit the TVM gives me then slow down or do i slow down in advance, etc.). My first scenario on the LGV, i blasted through Avignon and failed the scenario instantly. Many cheers!
When it comes to braking, there are a few factors to consider. What train you are driving, your current speed, weight of your train and the gradient of the line. Take SEHS and the 395 Javelin. If I'm on DC power going at 90mph, I'm going to want to brake early enough that I don't miss my stop so I usually start an initial application between 1.4 to 1 mile away from the stop point. As I get closer to my stop, I may find that the train isn't slowing down fast enough, if this is the case then I apply more break, usually 50% does the trick. You want to try and enter a platform at 25mph or 15mph if it's a smaller platform. Then it's just timing the brake application to stop at the right point. The 465 uses a notched brake and also comes on harder than the 395. When driving the 465 at full speed, I tend to go straight into brake notch 2 just over 1,000 yards away (somewhere around 0.8 - 0.6m) and then adjust to notch 1 when I feel I can make a comfortable entry into the platform. I never used notch 3 or emergency if I can help it. On LGV, the TVM display will beep and then start blinking when a speed reduction is coming up. You want to start braking as soon as you hear that beep, the blinking display is telling you to expect a speed reduction. On passing the next signal, the display will tell you how fast you need to be before you get the following signal. If the display is still blinking after you've been given a lower speed, expect the signal to give you a further speed reduction! Now if you turn on all the train safety systems, failure to reach the lower speed displayed before the following signal will trigger an emergency brake application. You can find them in the glass cabinet behind the driver's seat or turn them all on using ctrl, alt + enter on the keyboard. When handling the brake on LGV, I tend to put the throttle/brake handle into 100% brake and then apply a little bit of air brake ( ' & ; keys) if I don't feel like I'm going to stop in time. Besides all this, experience is another factor. The more time you spend driving, the more you will become familiar with a train and it's quirks. You'll also develop your own style of starting and stopping over time! Hope this helps!
Surely trains can't be all that hard after the Alicorn. The difference between a practice stop and actually stopping correctly is imagination. Jokes apart, the above comment is bang on, if you want to be prototypical you should use step 2 to slow down and step 1 just before stopping, however on the slower section of SEHS I usually only use step 1 on the Class 465. With the 395 is a bit trickier but not that much, just try to avoid moving the brake lever unnecessarily (so just set X braking force at Y distance), you'l find the right distance and force by practice, usually ~1mi for british trains, and ~1km for germany. LGV is a bit trickier, the brakes are not all that effective, so start braking about 2/3km away from the station, and remember to use the dynamic brakes if necessary.
I've ran on the classic portion of SEHS with the 395 and i do just fine with the deceleration as it feels like how i would if i were to drive another class (375 or 465). I should've specified the question better for when i drive the Javelin on HS1 (and thus the Euroduplex on the LGV) And yes the 465 really is hard-hitting i can feel the breaks kick in with even just 1 notch . But it's silhouette and motor sound sure is timeless! Thanks for the tips!
I'll give you one thing, i did not expect someone to recognize me in this forum so soon. It's a shame i can't do much salvation-ing in TSW2 .
With regards to TVM signalling, when the speedo starts flashing you know the next signal point will change to a lower speed, so you should not be accellerating at that point. Then you know that at the next signal you will have to be down to the speed noted, thus how hard to brake. As an example, when going from Stratford to St Pancras you barely have time to get much above 180 before you get told the speed will start coming down again, so when it starts flashing, I take the power off Over time you know the "speed chunks" and how hard to decelerate. All part of route learning
It's also a good way to clean the tables in the bistro and get people out of their seats so that they can disembark quicker Jokes aside. If you want to drive your train realistically, munska, since we can't feel how hard or soft we are braking in the train it might be easier to aim for a specific deceleration rate (at least it is for me). In real life, if the driver wants to brake comfortable they will usually decelerate on the order of 0.6-0.8 m/s^2 (80-100 mph/min) so if you are approaching the station at 80 mph expect to brake a minute or so before the stop. This translates to 800-1000 yards before the station. The class 395 has a maximum deceleration rate of around 1.0 m/s^2 so if you brake 60-80% you will decelerate at 0.6-0.8 m/s^2. For the class 375 this is step 2. For the TGV Duplex this is somewhere around 1 bar reduction in the brake pipe and some extra dynamic brake to adjust. To illustrate that it takes a long time to stop a TGV from 300 km/h, at these deceleration rates it will take 4000-6000m to stop.
