Interesting little 'realism' test

[JSMR]

I was watching the video below of well known 'Aussie Train Driver'. I'm running a route which has this line in it. I tried to match as best I could the real loco's that were used and the grain hoppers to equal the weight of the train.
He said it was 1508t and 340m long. 3 locos at 4500 hp total.

I made a consist that was 1510t, but it was shorter by quite a margin. Horsepower according to the ENG files on all 3 I chose (B, S and T class) was 4275 hp.
Up the same 2.1% grade, and I was 10-12 km/h faster than in reality. Which was around 25km/h in this video. I was assuming he was in notch 8. Reasonable but not quite the same.

I added 3-4 or so more grain hoppers, until the length equalled what was given in the video. Interesting the OR hoppers weight was 1500t exactly but 1800t or so total train weight. My consist was now 340m though like the real one here in the video. Something not adding up but maybe he meant 1500t for the hoppers only??

Anyway, as you can see, now it was much closer to the actual speed up the grade. Only 3-4 km/h faster which I thought was pretty good considering. I suppose there are much more factors involved to make it 'real', but a fun exercise nonetheless. If I've missed something, like the usual - the obvious lol - shout it. haha

I've paused still on the climb up. The long 2.0% downhill part at night will be quite exciting. 😧

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NlxH32ya-qw

Open Rails Test.jpg

[ossie]

There's a number of great stall videos on "the bank" that have appeared on youtube over the years. I grew up not far away from Ballarat and my uncle (who was a train nut himself and probably responsible for my enthusiasm) took me up to Warrenheip a bunch of times when I was a kid. Looking back I always found it strange that for a yard that was a busy as Ballarat in the VR/VL days they never used bankers. I recently stumbled across this video which shows an X doing banker duty so they apparently did use them at times. I haven't had any luck finding out how regularly or rarely that happened, just never on the days I was there unfortunately.





Oh edit... sorry, too busy going back to my childhood to remember what the point of the thread was. I forgot to say that I don't have the technical expertise to comment on the loads/weight issue but I've had very mixed results myself in the sim trying to replicate real trains. I did my own experiments with jets & grain trains up the bank from Ballarat over the years and quite regularly stalled. That may be more a comment on my train handling expertise than a sim issue but I'm always interested to hear from people who have done it for real how well the sim replicates real life operations.

[derekmorton]

Hi Ossie,

When talking about train tonnage, its only ever the trailing tonnage.

Engine weight is only a consideration when looking at bridges.

[derekmorton]

Looking at horsepower, I get

b class 1200hp
s class 1418hp
t class 779hp

3397hp

I am using power at the rail, not max power

[ossie]

Thanks Derek. I think a lot of it probably just came down to me not running the locos properly. I know I tried it a few times "back in the day" with a standard rake of hoppers and a couple of Gs and didn't do too well compared to seeing the real versions in action. I'm not sure my driving has improved that much a decade or so later when I think about it. 😊

[JSMR]

Last edited by ossie; Today, 00:40. Reason: Addressing the topic rather than reminiscing.

Haha reminiscing is half the fun. 😋
Yeah I've watched plenty of those vids. The good old days in VIC. Must have been fun watching them slug it out up the bank as well.

Hi Ossie,
When talking about train tonnage, its only ever the trailing tonnage.
Engine weight is only a consideration when looking at bridges.

OK that makes sense.

Looking at horsepower, I get

b class 1200hp
s class 1418hp
t class 779hp

3397hp

I am using power at the rail, not max power

Is the rail power figure in the ENG file? I could only see Max Power.
Interesting is that the b and s class difference from max to at rail is 300-400 hp. The t class is only 96 less.

Although the T class in the video was converted to the P class and bigger engine. So maybe it's all about the rail adhesion / friction perhaps.

Ether way, accurate or not, something to amuse myself with.

[pschlik]

The rail power is what should be entered in the MaxPower parameter. Some creators didn't understand that and would toss in the rated power, giving you a bit of an undue buff in power.

[JSMR]

OK ok.
I'll do that now and see what happens.

EDIT : ok that made it much better. Thank you. Top speed up the bank now 22 km/h. So around 5 less than before. RL was 25 but that P class has more power than the T class loco I'm using.

How to you find the correct value if the max power is only used?

[jbtower]

Pete you use the term "Bankers" and that's a term I've never heard before in railroading. Please educate me...lol

[llanning08]

A 'banker' is an engine pushing or pulling a train up a bank or incline. US railroad term is 'helper'.

[ossie]

Pete you use the term "Bankers" and that's a term I've never heard before in railroading. Please educate me...lol

Hi Kevin, Lawrence is right. Bankers are our version of helpers. The route we are discussing is Footscray to Ballarat and just outside Ballarat is the Warrenheip "bank", which is a steep hill. I'd never really thought about it before but I assume bank might just be railway slang as a shortened version of "embankment" and therefore where the term "bankers" came from. Does anyone know for sure?

[ossie]

OK ok.
How to you find the correct value if the max power is only used?

That's an interesting question and taking on board Derek's figures (and the difference between them and the old .eng file entries) and Phillip's point, if that's widely done across the sim, we've got a lot of "super charged" power.

[emd645e3c]

The use of the X at the start banking the "Jet" wasn't common. They usually ran straight through. Looking closely at the video, I think the 2'nd 930 might only be idling, So if it's expired part way, then yea, they'd need to bank it up to Warrenheip.

A couple of other interesting things in that video. The empty grain departing at the 7:00 mark with S306-S310. As 310 goes by you can hear how different it sounded to the lead one. The second series S's ( 310-317 ) had a different roots blower set up, and as such had a very distinct whine to them.

At the 9:00 mark, it shows X36 on an up pass doing an automatic staff exchange. I wish now I'd actually recorded that happening from in the cab at 115 km/h.

At the 18:00 mark the signalman at Ballan does a hand staff exchange through the platform. With a Vic loco leading it would of just stayed on the main and done an automatic exchange the same as the X at Warrenheip.

Regarding the cab ride video. SSR's B's and S's I believe have upgraded power assemblies, hence the quoted figured of 1500 hp for the B, and 2000 for the S.
The full allowable load for the 3 units up Warrenheip would be around 2100t.

As for the difference in real vs the MSTS models. The VR models are pretty old now and probably need a physics upgrade would be my guess.

Steve