Railworks America

Hello I had a question about proper braking in ts2014. First off, what is a proper braking procedure? For example I have a station coming up and I'm going say 70. On the Pacific Surfliner route i start about 1 1/2 miles away with dynamics to about 40 then use the train brake and make a visual stop into the station. I always catch my self coming up short and I coast into the station at about 4-8 mph and make a visual stop. Any ideas? I'm starting to get impatient with my noob braking procedures. My objective is to get that smooth stop right on point when i arrive into a station. Thank you. Btw hello this is my first post! looking forward to many great things!

-McTrainGuy

Somewhere in the Pacific Surfliner thread there is quite a discussion about the braking characteristics there. If you look at the line pressure you'll see that after you apply you have to release and let it bleed back down or you end up with just what you are getting so my advise is hit the air and then release repeat as necessary. With practice I just about have it most of the time.

Every single engine or locomotive in this sim has different braking characteristics. It's just a matter of doing a few runs to get used to the brakes. Read the manual first, it will give general guidelines, as Buzz said. But coming into a station at between 10 to 5mph sounds about right. Coming up short is when you are at a stop 2/10's of a mile out. Then you have to release, wait for pressure to drop, then accelerate, brake again. I still have that happen once in a while. Also takes time to learn how to get stopped at the platform correctly. Watch the F4 HUD, it shows your train's position at the station. Be patient with yourself, have fun, that way it won't get too frustrating. And,

New engineer struggling with engine controls and judging distance... stopping short... having to sit there waiting for brake charge... limping up to station late while passengers on platform stare and chatter in wonder at what could be wrong... engineer getting more instruction... sounds pretty realistic. Enjoy!

McTrainGuy wrote:what is a proper braking procedure?

This is a good question and I would like to hearthe pros.
How do you brake a passenger train at a station in prototype operation?

I believe BNSFDude gave a rather detailed answer somewhere in the Surfliner thread.

This is how I do it with my equipment. I pull into the station area at around 5 MPH. About three car lengths away from my spot (I'm narrow gauge, so 90 feet) I take around a 6 PSI set on the automatic, with the independent bailed off. Leave the independent bailed off until everything is equalized, then hold for an additional four seconds. This will slow the train down enough I will need to use the throttle to keep moving forward being judicious with the throttle to prevent wheelslip. The goal here is to keep your speed up, not accelerate. Then I will squeeze some air to the independent, slowing me down slowly until I "land" at the spot. I then put the full independent on, center my johnson bar, and open the cylinder cocks. This method prevents slack from rolling in on you so that when you depart from the station you do not have to worry about slack bouncing your passengers around.

In general terms, most traction units (and MU's) in the sim suffer to some extent from too efficient braking and the F59's supplied with Pacific Surfliner are an example as discussed in another thread.

Not strictly applicable to loco hauled trains or US operations, but when I worked as a Controller for one of the passenger train companies here in the UK, if a Sprinter type DMU had been reported for poor brakes it was required to have a trial run after repairs. In order to pass, it had to stop within a distance of no more than around 800 metres (half a mile) from 75 MPH on dry, level rail with a full service (Step 3) brake application. Loco hauled or high speed trains running much faster will require a far greater distance, if you consider at 90 MPH you are travelling +- 44 yards a second, in the time it takes from thinking about applying the brakes to the shoes or pads being applied you will have travelled quarter of a mile. At 125 MPH that increases to the point where you need to be killing the speed about a mile and a half out.

In the real world, drivers know the route and the braking characteristics of the traction and tend to instinctively know where to start applying the brakes, making allowances for wet or greasy rails. We don't always have that luxury in the sim as you are often running unfamiliar (or not very prototypical) motive power on a route you've never seen before. That said, if we mess it up RW knocks a few points off the score - in the real world if you overshoot a station or SPAD a signal you get to pee in a cup and one too many times qualify for unemployment benefit... :)

From my experience as a passenger on trains and subways, it seems to me that acceleration and deceleration are rather intense.
It seems like the engineer floors it between stations in order to keep on schedule. Trains seem to arrive at stations quite fast, 20 mph and more, and brakes are applied at the last time. I don't know if this is just just my imagination.

Probably.

One thing it is much easier to judge speed vs distance in our modern cab view sims than it was in the old text based ones. Typically I will aim to be doing around 20 MPH as I reach the end of the platform as it's relatively easy to eyeball your stopping distance and final brake application(s). Where we used to rely on a distance counter with a requirement to stop in the last 20 yards or so I would be crawling at < 10 MPH to avoid a station overshoot.

Similarly, The New Haven and Long Island guys I worked with with back in the early-'70s would approach the end of the platform at about 30mph and make a 35# reduction on the brakes, which is essentially equivalent to the Step 3 application Northern Warrior mentioned. When the train's speed approached 8 or 7mph, they'd put the brake valve in the quick release position (or the release position, if the valve didn't have a quick release position): by the time the brakes released, the train's speed would be down to 5MPH or less, at which point it could be quickly and comfortable stopped with a 5# reduction. A few trips on the Corridor in recent years indicate that this is still very much a common practice.

Following the station stop, they would accelerate to track speed as quickly as possible without slipping the drivers. This does far more to save time between stops than speeding. The New Haven guys running FL-9s tended to put the brake handle in release and pull the throttle out to Run 4 more-or-less simultaneously, which produced a very fast start without yanking the slack out violently, causing passenger discomfort.

FWIW, this technique has worked consistently for me with all the British EMUs I have (these are limited to all of those that serve[d] the former Southern Region), as well as for the passenger trains on the NEC.

Thanks, that's the kind of info I was looking for.

Chacal wrote:From my experience as a passenger on trains and subways, it seems to me that acceleration and deceleration are rather intense.
It seems like the engineer floors it between stations in order to keep on schedule. Trains seem to arrive at stations quite fast, 20 mph and more, and brakes are applied at the last time. I don't know if this is just just my imagination.

Living in Tennessee prevents me from traveling by U. S. passenger rail, but here's what usually happens in Italy: As noted above, engineer drives as fast as permitted (well, maybe a teensy bit over) between station stops. This causes the train to approach the station too fast and too early, so the driver slows to a crawl in the middle of nowhere (but the middle of nowhere is usually pretty attractive anywhere in Italy except on the trashy industrial and nomad-camp suburbs of large cities, such as Rome and Milan). Finally, speed climbs again as the engineer realizes that the train is now likely to be late. The final approach and stop happen smoothly, but usually "in ritardo" (meaning "late", not what non-Italian riders might think) by at least half a minute. (I'm omitting the occasional long delays explained to passengers only by the meaningless announcement, "TrenItalia ci scusiamo per l'eventuale disaggio." [Literally, "TrenItalia apologizes for any difficulties"; less literally: "Tough luck again, folks; even if we know what caused the delay, we're not likely to tell you."]

Il Vecchio Professore ci scuse per l'eventuale diragliamento della tema!

Generally a mile is a good starting distance if you're first picking up a train, after that you begin to learn its characteristics. A bit more scientific thing I did when I first got London-Brighton is take the 377 out to the TestTrack and record the stopping distances in brake positions 1,2, and 3 from several common speeds on the line (40, 70 and 90 IIRC). It's a nicely quick trainset, I think in position 1, can bring a train from 90 to 0 in something like .6 miles, while position 2 generally gave distances in the range of .4-.5 miles exclusive. There's something satisfying about cranking down on the controller when you can see the platform .2 miles away (end is about .3 miles) and coming to a stop 30 seconds ahead of the scheduled time. The train also lets you "cheat." Since the brakes are engaged and the power cut out when the doors are open, I can put the controller back at 100% as soon as I come to a stop and the train begins moving as soon as the doors close I know it's not realistic, but it's sure fun!