[charland]

Hi Derek,

I'm trying this now. First off it's a full restart to the activity. I backed onto the long cut of cars I've been having the problem with (the third part of the activity where I sort these cars) and when I do, all the cars and the engine show emergency. I can not move with everything in emergency. so it's not just after saving the activity, closing and reopening the program. The same as in my screenshots, the cars go into emerg and have 90 psi in the Brake Pipe, Auxiliary Reservoir, and ErgRes (what's ERG again!). There doesn't appear to be a way to dump the air.

Paul :-)

[charland]

OK, Found something else. With the HUD opened so I can see what's going on I see that when I back on to a cut of cars is the handbrakes are set to 100% and I release them, all the cars do stay in emergency but I have no trouble moving them. If I couple to a cut of cars and the handbrakes are set to 0%, I'n screwed and have to keep using SHIFT+/ every time I spot or lift a car with this cut. So the big question is, why are all the cars not set to the same thing at the beginning of an activity?

Paul :-)

[engmod]

I am testing an FJ&g activity No 18 now.

[charland]

Hi Derek and All,

I've been tinkering trying to find out the exact sequence of events.

It may have something to do with me doing my switching with no air and not using handbrakes. In real life if they are switching in a flat yard they don't use handbrakes until they are finished and ready to assemble the train. So when I was switching I wasn't using any handbrakes. I then saved and closed Open Rails, coming back to it about half an hour later. I coupled on the two cars with no trouble, then ran around the yard to drop off one car at the other end of the cut.

As you can see in the first shot everything with the brakes appears to be normal.

https://images2.imgbox.com/21/9a/y8VuXN5o_o.jpg

Once coupled to the cut of cars there are no handbrakes. The cut I just coupled to are in emergency, but not the cars of the unit I was operating.

https://images2.imgbox.com/23/ae/Cfgg0SjM_o.jpg

The only way to move is to use SHIFT+/. That's where the problem starts and continues every time you lift or set a car out. I tried to apply handbrakes and then release them, that did nothing. Even if I was to apply handbrakes before the run around movement, handbrakes would have to be applied to every car while the unit was still part of the cut. That doesn't sound to realistic to me.

Paul :-)

[Genma Saotome]

Seems to me the proper status would be to mark everything to the rear of a closed angle cock as brakes are offline as no signal will pass that closed valve. If that's the case then the brake pipe should be understood as terminated at that point; everything towards the locomotive should perform normally, to rear the only action I can think of is the chance of a broken coupler initiating an emergency in the back half of the train. Maybe that can be ignored.

I think the correct value for the brakeline in the back half is whatever pressure there was when the angle cock was closed and it should retain that value (or reduce from leakage if that's present).

The last situation that comes to mind is closing the angle cock on the last car of the front half of the train and leaving the angle cock on the first car of the trailing group open. They'll go into emergency but eventually the reservoirs will leak their air and the brakes will be released, the cars free rolling, no brakes at all.

All of that might mean one or more new status values for the triple valve, something for the brake line being offline and another for no air anywhere.

Thoughts?

[charland]

Yesterday when I was doing a road switching activity it was going well, but then stopped to pick up a car that had no handbrakes on and that screwed everything up again and I was back to SHIFT+/ every time I dropped or picked a car up. It appears to be random, cars without handbrakes, just like the four that did have handbrakes on out of the sixteen I picked up during the yard activity,

Paul :-)

[cesarbl]

This doesn't seem to be caused by a bug in the braking code. From your pictures, what I see is that the brake pipe in the coupled consist is empty (0bar), but the auxiliary reservoir is fully charged. Therefore, the triple valves apply brakes, increasing brake cylinder pressure and preventing the consist from moving. In order to release the brakes, two options are possible:
1) Connect the brake hose to the main consist, so the brake pipe is charged and the brakes are released.
2) Open the bleed off valve. This will empty the auxiliary reservoirs, causing the triple valve to move to "Release" position.

I don't know what the initial state of a loose consist should be. If we changed the initial state so that every air reservoir was empty at startup, the consist may move unintentionally.

[charland]

Part of the problem is that the state of the handbrakes in loose consists should be at 100% for every loose consist at the beginning of an activity. When you couple to a loose consist you would them either connect the air hoses and pump up the air OR just release the handbrakes and switch with no air. Unfortunately OR is currently applying the handbrakes at random, only around 25% of the loose consists I've been switching have handbrakes at 100%.

I'm back to v1.3 so I can see what's going on using the F5 HUD, but the same things was happening in v1.4.


Paul :-)

[cesarbl]

Quote

Part of the problem is that the state of the handbrakes in loose consists should be at 100% for every loose consist at the beginning of an activity. When you couple to a loose consist you would them either connect the air hoses and pump up the air OR just release the handbrakes and switch with no air.

Even if you released the handbrakes, the automatic brakes would still be applied unless you either connect the brake hose or bleed off the air reservoirs. I suppose the solution would be to initialize loose consists with all reservoirs emptied, but with handbrakes applied.

Quote

I'm back to v1.3 so I can see what's going on using the F5 HUD, but the same things was happening in v1.4.

You can still use the HUD in v1.4, it's just the keyboard shortcut that has changed.

[cjakeman]

Hi Paul,

charland, on 23 May 2022 - 06:05 AM, said:

I'm back to v1.3 so I can see what's going on using the F5 HUD, but the same things was happening in v1.4.

I'm curious. What is it that you can see on v1.3's F5 HUD that you can't see on v1.4's Alt+F5 HUD?