I am an old hand at MSTS but read about Open Rails recently and was very keen to try it out.
It picked up my MSTS install fine and I can successfully explore my routes. One I have been driving is Highland Mainline, downloaded from UKTrainSim. I am having difficulties with an activity though, and from some digging I suspect that the issue is that the MSTS freeware engine file is not setup correctly for the vacuum brakes in the train I am trying to drive.
The engine is 40024, attached, and in the activity you couple up to a loose consist of some newspaper coaches and some vacuum fitted wagons. But I can't release the train. After some troubleshooting I worked out that running only with the air-brake-fitted newspaper coaches works fine, so I have removed those from the consist to try and find out what I need to do to run the vacuum-brake-fitted freight wagons. I have a rudimentary understanding of rail brakes only, given that MSTS is a far simpler model - but I'd like to understand better and get this working in OR... I have a LOT of downloaded MSTS content I'd like to run with.
I have learned about the Shift F5 and F9 menus in OR, and have backed onto the consist, and connected brake hoses. I think I have the angle cocks set correctly (closed front of locomotive and end of last wagon, open within the consist). As soon as I connect, the locomotive's Triple Valve setting in the ShiftF5 HUD shows as Emergency. I cannot release the train at this point. Eventually after about 10 minutes the BrkCyl and BrkPipe values for the consist reach -99 inHg and the locomotive's TripleVale setting drops to Release, however the train still cannot be moved (other than dragging the wagons skidding along the track). I have released train brakes with ; and removed handbrakes with Shift ; the locomotive brake using [. I have tried initialising the brakes but am uncertain what the resultant changes 'mean'. I can also 'Bail Off' which drops the locomotive's BrkCyl to 0, but makes no changes to the consist - but again not sure what that is supposed to result in.
The shift F5 menu in the screenshot attached shows Release EQ 90 psi BC 58 psi BP 58 psi EOT BP -88. I assume BC is Brake cylinder and BP is Brake pipe, and EOT BP is end of train brake pipe?
What values should I be seeing in the train for it to move? I would assume that I'd need BrkCyl on the locomotive to be 0 for it to release there, but why when there is vacuum in the consist are the brakes not releasing?
Any advice would be appreciated. I have done a fair bit of reading, and have come across some material here on the forum that seem to indicate that the freeware MSTS eng file may be the issue, not being setup correctly for OR's vac brakes - but I'd like to understand what I need to learn and change so I can apply myself to other locomotives.
EDIT: incidentally, I assume that the Shift F5 screen not loading its values under the correct column headings is an unrelated issue?
Attached File(s)
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40024.eng (29.96K)
Number of downloads: 363
This post has been edited by Swallowtail: 04 May 2020 - 03:00 PM