Towing a shut down locomotive... and a few other issues.

[allaboard614]

Good afternoon,

There have been many errors that are documented through this forum but I haven't seen anything for this one so I apologies if this has already been reported. A lot of local switching is done with a locomotive on each end of the train so I thought that I might see how the game would respond when recreating this with the GP38-2 and the SD40-2. The only thing in theory that should be connecting the two locomotives is the air brake line, no MU, MR, ACT, or any other type of controlling systems so when the locomotive is cut out, isolated (or even if it’s not isolated), and the dead engine feature enabled is should respond like a freight car. When I tried this, even when it was isolated the "dead engine" would rev up and down just as if it was MU'd to another locomotive, the only difference being that when isolated it wouldn't produce any power but would still rev up and when it wasn't isolated it ran under power and responded to any throttle changes. Unless the locomotive was setup as a "mid train helper" this shouldn't happen under any circumstances. The next issue was with the braking; while it did respond as if it was a freight car the engine brakes would "bail off" when bailing off on the lead engine on the other end of the train, also this is not possible. On the effects side of things, I noticed that if a shutdown locomotive is coupled to a running locomotive and then towed it would still produce smoke out of the stack as it was running. In another life (on the weekends for a tourist railroad), I am a licensed engineer on steam and diesel as well as a fireman on steam so I have an understanding of how things should react. There is a myriad of other issues but I can see the amount of work that has gone into this so far and I definitely could see this becoming a very enjoyable simulator once the physics and other issues are corrected and more content is added. This is a solid platform to work off of and the physics problems off the bat are still better than a lot of what I've seen out of the box with TS2017. Keep up the good work.

Thanks,

Mat

[ThicKawkFillsTheSpots]

Yeah I've noticed that to with power at the tail end of the train. Best part is they respond like they're fitted with Distributive power...which can never be isolated lol

[Cellman_XM8]

If your doing the Cumberland Switchback scenario, I think all the locos have the radio breaker turned on so when isolated from being MU'd it is now treated as a distributed power unit controlled by radio.

[allaboard614]

Hi,

This wasn't in a scenario, it was while walking around freely in the Cumberland yard using the services option and the radio breaker was in the "off" position.

[Cellman_XM8]

I've noticed that in service mode some breakers and cab switches I've flipped get reset to the default by the game. Most likely this is becuase service mode is not a free roam mode and is supposed follow a set plan. In your case the game was likely trying to correct some unplanned changes you made. I would say try repeating what you attempted in the Cumberland Switchback scenario since that is a do whatever you want in the yard mode.

[Hoggs]

Did you have the radio turned on? In TSW, the radio stack emulates having an engineer in the remote loco, so it will repeat every command you input on the lead engine.

Try turning off the radio breaker and try again.

[SteakOplomb]

I've noticed the breaker do not operate properly. I've been able to control a loco with the control stand breaker on off. Also, switching off electronics do not shut down radio or tachymeter.