A couple of questions

[Knarf]

Hi there! By the looks of the screen shots so far, it looks like we are in for a real treat :) I do have a couple of questions about the operation of the game. First off, I was wondering if there will be the ability to isolate locomotives in the consist. For example, you have a consist which has 7 or 8 locomotives in your train, and in reality, you only need to use 2 of them for horsepower. Will you be able to take the remaining units off line (isolate)so that the simulator doesn't see all these units as excess active horsepower? Another question that I have is will there be the ability to cut out excess dynamic brakes on units. An example is on the CP (Soo Line) you cannot have a dynamic braking factor over 20. So say that you have 3 SD60's in your consist and each of them have a dynamic brake factor of "8", which would equal a DB factor of "24". You would have to cut out (disable) the dynamic brake on one of the units to be below the threshold of "20". My third question is will the simulator be able to reproduce true and false gradients (taper) in a train line. Let's say that you took a 10 lb set on the train, then released the air. A short time later, before the train line is fully charged, you need to grab another set of air. You would need to make a deeper reduction in your brake pipe to have an effective set because the false gradient is present which means your train line is not fully charged. Not making a sufficient brake pipe reduction when a false gradient is present can cause an undesired and unintentional release of the brakes on your train and cause a potential disaster. I apologize if these questions seem a little eccentric but I was just wondering how much consideration was being taken into the realism of the operation and the physical characteristics of train handling in the simulator.

[plainsman]

Hi Frank,
Those don't sound like eccentric questions to me, I am also interested in the reply!! I would add a few in the same vane (or vein), will the air in the brake line propagate down the line, since air can compress, it does not react like a hydraulic system, especially on a long train? Will there be end of train data, and will throttle progression be appropriately editable without creating display issues?
Thanks for the question!
Bob Boudoin

[EngineJoe]

I had a situation a few years ago in real life with an undesired release. We needed to tie on to a cut of cars, drag them north up to the main, cut away and get in the clear so another engine could tie on from the south and shove them where they needed to go. We were using the air and when we were ready to cut away my engineer reminded my brakeman to close the angle cock for the other crew. Then he made a minimum set. Well, instead of cutting away and closing the angle cock the brakeman closed it first, bottling the air. We didn't know what he did and were proceeding into town when the other crew called us on the radio asking if we were still tied on. We said no and he yelled back, "Well, they're coming your way!" We caught them after a short chase through town.

Anyway, after an investigation, we found out that when my engineer made a minimum set, only the brakes on the first few cars set. Then when my brakeman bottled the air the PSI in the rear of the train was higher than the front. When the air equalized in the train line the quick release feature released the brakes on the front of the train. All that combined with us leaving the cars on a grade almost spelled disaster.

I learned a few important lessions about railroading that day.
Joe

[Eagleknight]

Good questions there. I was also thinking in train sim 1 when you had more than one locomotive in a consist you would only get the front engine for the sound of what notch you were in. The rest would always sound like they were idling. I hope this will be corrected and when you notch up with say three engines you hear all of them notch up unless like you said you can isolate some if desired. This isolation feature could be used to make some good activities of having engine trouble and loosing an engine.

[coreynolds]

I had this concern as well for Push-Pull trains. In order for a control car to operate a train it must be considered a locomotive, and therefore has locomotion. I've run commuter trains with no locomotive because the control car was pulling the train. This also adds to other flaws with realistic operation.