A New User Does not Understand Brakes

[KonstantinMMRR]

As a new user, I am trying to learn throttle and brakes, rather than DCC mode. I have found three keys that control braking
Release Brakes: 9
Apply Brakes: 3
Lap Brakes: 6

I now have three questions about brakes:

1. When apply brakes is pressed, are the brakes on all the way? What I mean is, are the brakes just "on" or "off", or are they like a car where the brake pedal can be pushed lightly, or harder to apply the brakes more?

2. Are these brakes air brakes? If so, what about engine braking, or dynamic braking? Can this be done as well?

3. I do not understand how to disconnect single cars, or the entire train from the engine. I believe the lap brake is used, but I cannot figure it out. Suppose I have a train parked. I want to disconnent the engine, and move it forward. How do I put the parking brakes on the rest of the train, but release the brakes on the engine?

Thank you for all of your help.
Dean

 

[jmeinig]

1. Yes, when the brakes are applied they are "on", there is also the e-brake which is the Pause/Break key
2.Yes, they are air brakes, to enable dynamic braking, put the throttle at zero and press "4" on the keypad, then throttle up for more dynamic braking, i.e: Notch 1 = low, Notch 8= Max
3.The lap brake can adjust the brakes partway, if you apply the brakes, you can turn on the lap brake while the brakes are applying and that will hold the same pressie in the brake cylinder. To uncouple cars, press either Ctrl+D, and click when the red coupler shows up, it will change shape when they are coupled or not.

 

[sniper297]

You can't buy one now, because they're so popular they're sold out, but rather than learning and memorizing which keypress does what I use one of these;

http://www.raildriver.com/products/raildriver.php

Until then, if you're driving in CAB mode instead of DCC, the F9 HUD will give you the info;

On what the brake setting is.

Dynamic brakes work on most diesels, for that I shove the Raildriver throttle into the dynamic brake quadrant, no idea what the key command is.

For uncoupling, hit 2 for external view, then 4 for the free roaming view. Move over to the cars you want to uncouple, left hand hold down CTRL and D, right hand move the mouse between the cars, should get a red coupler icon, click on that.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1q58LU3-X4

After uncoupling you can apply or release brakes on whatever cars are still coupled on, the cars that you uncouple from will sit still if you had the brakes applied when you uncoupled, if you were still rolling when you uncoupled the cars will roll until they run out of Isaac Newton.

 

[jmeinig]

Sniper, the hud cannot be completely turned off in UTC (that I've found), so I don't think the F9 thing will work for him, heck, it won't even work for me, my key settings are F5, F6, and F7, although I think his are F1, F2, and F3.

 

[sniper297]

Don't have UTC so I dunno. Is there some type of HUD or display that shows how the brakes are set in UTC?

Academic interest, US railroads use Westinghouse automatic air brakes, which are a "failsafe" design - if a hose breaks or separates the air is all lost from the brake pipe, which rather than leaving you with no brakes like on a semi tractor truck, applies full emergency brakes when the air is lost.

The way it works, each car has an air tank, a main pipe running from end to end with a hose and valve at each end of the main pipe. When the car is coupled on, the hoses are connected between cars and the valve is opened, then a compressor in the engine starts pumping up the pressure. The air line and the tank under the car is "charged" to about 90PSI, then an automatic shutoff cuts off the compressor. A collection of automatic pressure controlled check valves does the rest of the work, if the engineer applies the brake handle that opens a valve in the engine to bleed air out of the brake line, and when the pressure in the brakeline is less than the pressure in each car's tank that forces the brakes on. Shoving the brake lever into emergency is called "the big hole" since that opens the valve all the way and dumps all the air, applying full brakes. Any failure in the brake line will do the same thing, applying full brakes automatically as the pressure in all the car tanks exceeds the pressure in the brake line.

Other things, locomotives have independent brakes which can be applied without applying brakes on the rest of the train, and conversely there's a "bail off" lever you can use to apply brakes on the train and release the brakes on the engines. Mostly all that is used for assorted switching and managing the slack in special circumstances, normally the train brakes are used on flat mainlines.

Further reading;

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Railway_air_brake

 

[KonstantinMMRR]

Thank you for the help. I am beginning to understand it better now. That Raildriver looks like it would make things more enjoyable.

Dean

 

[Azervich]

Hey all,

Trainz is actually based on the Westinghouse brake setup.

For those who don't know Westinghouse "as there are Electronic and vac brakes out there" Westinghouse uses a Main Res, Equalizer Res, Brake Pipe, Aux Res.

Main Res Keeps the pressures up,
Equalizer Res sets the brake pipe pressure "as longer trainz takes ages to drop the brake pipe and Equalizer lets the drive know what pressure he wants"
Aux res uses a Triple valve, reduction in the brake pipe causes the triple valve to open the tank from the aux res to the brake cylinder, the lower the brake pipe the more the valve opens up the aux res to brake cyl, the higher the brake Pipe and the triple valve closes the aux res to the brake cyl and opens the brake cyl vent "vent lets the brake cyl air to the atmosphere".

Brakes Release: Full Brake Pipe Pressure.
Brakes Lap: Holds Set Equalizer Pressure.
Brakes Apply: Sets the Equalizer to 41 PSI (which tells the brake pipe to drop completely and sets the brakes to full)

The Brake Initial you've mentioned is only with scripted cabs "I believe" as I've started working on some custom cabs myself and they don't have Brake Initial.

-Aaron

 

[ZecMurphy]

There are two brake handle types in Trainz.

One is a self-lapping brake (modern design), the other is a non-self-lapping (older design).

The self-lapping brake has 'initial' settings, rather than a lap setting. You can keep increasing through the 'initial' settings, and as you do so, the brakes will apply more. You will eventually reach the 'apply' position, which will give a full application. Beyond this is 'emergency', which simply dumps all of the air.

The non-self-lapping brake uses a slightly different principal. Instead of self-lapping (initial) positions, you move the brake handle to the 'apply' position (releases air at a reasonable rate), and then when the brake pressure has dropped to the desired amount, move the brake handle back to the 'lap' position (between apply and release). This will 'hold' the brake pressure (note, the pressure may change for a second or so as the pressures equalize along the train), so that you slow down at the desired rate.

You will need to practice with both types on each locomotive to get a feel for how long the pressure takes to drop. Remember, different length/weight trains will take different times to stop with the same brake pressure. A heavier train will require a larger reduction in brake pressure.