[steamer_ctn]

In the early days of railways brakes were either only fitted to locomotives and/or brakevans. Industrial railways also often had braking only on the locomotive, or in some instances brakemen stationed on each car to manually operate the brakes.

For example, as a side project, I am currently working on a timber railway, and this railway had grades as steep as 1 in 7 (14%) , and the logging cars were each controlled by a brakeman using a block and tackle arrangement to apply the brakes as required. Naturally this lead to some interesting operational situations as depicted in this video. It was stated that a brakeman that made it to lunchtime on his first day on the job without leaving, was likely to stay on, otherwise they would need to look for a new brakeman.

Automatic brakes added to all cars were phased in from the late 1800s, mostly for mainline types of trains.

In some instances the use of unbraked cars persistence into the late 1900s.

Whilst this type of operation is able to be "mocked up" by the current functionality of using unbraked "piped only" cars it doesn't (IMO) achieve an "authentic" scenario.

I am therefore proposing to introduce a "manual braking" control into OR, which in effect will allow for unbraked cars to be placed into the consist and controlled separately to the train and engine brakes. Hence a brakeman type of functionality will be created.

A new brake control will be created to allow operation of brakes on brakevans (and other cars designated as manual braking") to facilitate this.

The current Train and Engine brake will remain as they are, thus the train operator, depending upon wagon configuration, may have up to three different types of brake available to them to operate.

[Weter]

It can be interesting in context of hystorical Rolling-stock.

Spoiler

I have read about Suram-pass railway line at Kaucasus, Georgia. There worked steamers with two opposite-directed boilers and steam-machines and single cab in the middle(push-pull) and cars with brakeman's booth (or same brake vans), so, when the train descends fom summit, the brakeshoes, made of wood, was worn completly (they simply turned to ash). For that reason, that line was decided to use as testing polygon for recuperative-braking, so some italian-made electric locos Saveliano was purchased. http://www.trainsim.ru/screenshot/tsrLoco_SSm-14.jpg And was developed a couple of variants of own models.

[longiron]

that's really cool addition. Especially when fighting long, steep grades.

[markus_GE]

Sort-of http://www.elvastower.com/forums/public/style_emoticons/default/offtopic.gifalert, since I cannot comment on the feature proposal - see below why.
http://www.elvastower.com/forums/public/style_emoticons/default/sign_thank_you.gif for sharing this info and especially the video. I knew a little about how braking a train was done back in those days, but - as the saying goes - a picture is worth a thousand words. Geez, I thought I was doing a dangerous (summer) job, working as a blasting assistant at a limestone quarry, but I would not want to switch with those guys!
Cheers, Markus

[steamer_ctn]

For interest, whilst doing some research for manual brakes I also can across this method of braking - Rocket.

And for a bit of fun to demonstrate a well run railway.

[cjakeman]

steamer_ctn, on 17 August 2020 - 03:29 AM, said:

For example, as a side project, I am currently working on a timber railway, and this railway had grades as steep as 1 in 7 (14%) , and the logging cars were each controlled by a brakeman using a block and tackle arrangement to apply the brakes as required. Naturally this lead to some interesting operational situations as depicted in this video.

Amazing bit of film. Those men winding their winches must have some musclepower.

Have you thought how the player is going to control the brakes on your individually braked vehicles?

[steamer_ctn]

cjakeman, on 26 August 2020 - 10:37 AM, said:

Have you thought how the player is going to control the brakes on your individually braked vehicles?

I will be adding an extra controller which will only operate manual brakes, ie a brakeman function.

Hence the user will have three possible brake functions at their disposal, ie Train, Engine, Brakeman.

These will be able to be added or subtracted as desired (hopefully).

[steamer_ctn]

A number of scenarios have now been coded for manual braking.

To demonstrate them, some stock (and in some instances test routes) will be available on the CTN site. A new thread will be started for the first one based upon the Rainhill Trial (link to route available through this thread) as it is an interesting piece of railway history.

The first scenario is based upon the Rocket, and Rainhill trials where no brakes were provided on any of the rolling stock. To stop the train the driver had to reduce reduce the steam pressure to zero, and then put the reverser in reverse. The steam pressure could then be reapplied, and the train stopped.
Further scenarios will follow.

[steamer_ctn]

As a second scenario, I have added the timber railway described in the first post in this thread. It had gradients of up 14.4% ( 1 in 7 ) and ran trains with brakemen on individual wagons, and steam brakes on the locomotive.

Some cars were also unbraked (if a brakeman was not assigned to the car).

This route can also be used to test the performance of geared steam locomotives.

[steamer_ctn]

A third demonstration activity has been created to demonstrate another potential manual braking scenario.

This one challenges the user to safely take a mixed vacuum/manual braked train down a 1 in 40 gradient.

I get very little feedback for any of the demonstration activities that I have created. So I am beginning to think that they are not of interest to anybody, and people prefer to find out how to set up stock on their own. Is this the case?

If there is no interest in demonstration activities, I will cease creating them when I create new OR functionality and put my time to other uses.

Thanks