Long Coupling Sequence - AI

[boleyd]

An "issue" that was fixed awhile ago has reemerged. That is, the very long time an engine takes to couple to a car/wagon. In my case I have restructured the Dremmy epic East Kentucky route to function, and appear properly, in TS19. The is a large yard at Hazard, Kentucky where a GP9 engine and a short string of 5 coal cars waiting (empty). The engine is several tracks away and takes an illogical route to get to the same track as the coal cars. The yard speed is 30mph. When the engine gets to the same track as the cars it slows to 20mph. At that time it is several hundred yard from the target car. As it moves forward the speed drops to 2mph. Later it decreases further to 1 mph. EVENTUALLY it gets to the invisible trigger point and increases to the coupling speed of 5mph. From that point on the train couples and arrives at the tipple, cars load, go to the power plant and unload. At a long distance of travel at 1mph speed I could have walked along side the engine and leisurely checked the mail on my phone. It was tempting to use the Shift key to speed things up but I needed to see just how badly the process functioned.

 

[JCitron]

That is why I manually couple. At 1 mph you could run around the complete train and still end up ahead of the consist. This is part of the AI issue that we discussed before.

 

[boleyd]

Yes, it has history. I was hoping someone on the forum had uncovered a work-around. Submitted a trouble ticket via the broken Ticket Master.

Manual coupling - rather than reinvent I'll humble myself and ask what is the process for a manual couple if you are not driving?

A discovery is - if you are too near the target car (couple to) the engine will move forward at 2-3mph until it reaches the trigger to go to 5mph coupling speed.
I usually place the engine close to the target to not waste time when testing -bad.

 

[roca999]

boleyd, I had a similar problem using the command runaround to re-couple to a loaded consist. The engine would crawl way too early at 2-3 miles/hour. I changed out the JR engine with a different one and behold it worked just fine. I have no idea why....good luck.

 

[boleyd]

Well, how about that - it worked. I tried 3 different engines and they all operated at specified speed. However, when I returned to the original (PNWR SD7 #1501 1) it failed by slowing to 3mph prior to the target switch. I recall a spec in the engine that had something to do with a delay in an ITC engine. I tried to open the Config and the Script for the engine but nothing opened. SAD. Rather than beat a dead horse I will just use an "improved" engine. Thanks for your hint!!!

 

[Tony_Hilliam]

Check the max accel and decel and compare the two locos. I suspect they are quite different and the AI is therefore simply being cautious with either a very powerful loco or weak set of brakes. (Just guessing here).