Speeding

[JohnS]

Has anyone ever looked into if it's possible to change the setting somewhere to give us more leeway on career scenarios? I suppose not or we would be cheating on the points thing. I am going to try to run one going five under and see if I get penalized for taking too much time.

When you get to a timed check point it will say "timeliness penalty" and won't give you the full amount of points possible by that check point.

[GERUNIMO625]

Howdy,

Cab signal territory with speed control gives you about 2mph before the alarm starts going off and you need to slow down at or below the signal speed

Interesting you say that, here in CNW/UP land we have an ATC system, and it will squawk at you until your going 17.0 MPH past an Approach signal, if your going 17.1 it'll still beep. There is no leeway at all.

When trains are running late, every endeavour must be made to recover time, subject to the strict observance of all speed restrictions, both permanent and temporary.

This applies to our commuter service(s) as well (Metra). Some, not all Engineers (the good ones anyway) will make every effort to make up time between stops.

I am going to try to run one going five under and see if I get penalized for taking too much time.

This is probably the most "realistic" option. Compiling what everyone said here, good train handling includes using your territory to your advantage. There are a few places where we have multiple speed changes within short succession, and it just makes things easier to cruise at the lowest speed restriction until we are out of the woods. Minimizes in-train forces and then you can divert brain power to another task, (with freight anyway). If the game penalizes you, just tell yourself; "I took the safest course, in accordance with good train handling". That is a get out of jail free card with our management.

Cool topic, seeing how everyone else does things.

[JohnS]

Howdy,

Cab signal territory with speed control gives you about 2mph before the alarm starts going off and you need to slow down at or below the signal speed

Interesting you say that, here in CNW/UP land we have an ATC system, and it will squawk at you until your going 17.0 MPH past an Approach signal, if your going 17.1 it'll still beep. There is no leeway at all.

I can only comment on NJ Transit but when we passed an Approach it makes us go 30mph then about halfway through the block, if the next signal stays at stop the cab signals drop to restricting making the ATC have us do no more than 20mph and in that situation you can't go over 20mph at all.

[mrennie]

Has anyone ever looked into if it's possible to change the setting somewhere to give us more leeway on career scenarios? I suppose not or we would be cheating on the points thing. I am going to try to run one going five under and see if I get penalized for taking too much time.

It depends entirely on what the scenario author does, and how much leeway they choose to give you. When I make career scenarios, I run the scenarios myself at a reasonable, realistic speed, without speeding but managing the cab properly, with any difficulty settings (such as realistic throttle and advanced brakes) on the hardest level, and I make a note of the times when I reach the places where I want to set checkpoints. Then I adjust the efficiency percentages in the scenario't timetable until the times it sets coincide with the ones I actually achieved plus a 5-10 minute margin. However, DTG's QA usually fail to get maximum points (because I have a better understanding of how to operate my locos than they do), so I usually have to go back and lower the timetabled efficiencies to give more margin. The upshot of this is that the version of the scenario that gets released is easy for me to achieve, but should be challenging, but not enormously difficult, for anyone who's not expert at it.

I've seen other career scenarios where the author has allowed almost no margin at all and forces you to accelerate and brake as if you were playing something based on Need for Speed movies. That was the author's choice. I wouldn't write scenarios like that.

The main problem with career scenarios, from a developer's point of view, is that it's very hard to find a balance where the scenario is challenging enough for experienced players but not frustratingly difficult for less experienced players and novices. I remember watching a recording of a Twitch stream of one of Jupiter's career scenarios and several people on the chat claimed that I must have cheated to get 1000pts. I didn't. I can get 1000pts consistently on all three career scenarios with time to spare. The problem is that they don't understand how to run the locomotive efficiently in diverse conditions.

[katyusha454]

Speaking of Mike's steam engines, how was speeding handled in the old days? I've read about train crews speeding fairly routinely in the steam age in order to make up time, and from some of the stuff I've read it seemed like speed restrictions were treated more like a suggestion than an actual rule, at least as far as the engineers were concerned. How was speeding treated and enforced before the invention of on-board recording devices?

[JohnS]

Speaking of Mike's steam engines, how was speeding handled in the old days? I've read about train crews speeding fairly routinely in the steam age in order to make up time, and from some of the stuff I've read it seemed like speed restrictions were treated more like a suggestion than an actual rule, at least as far as the engineers were concerned. How was speeding treated and enforced before the invention of on-board recording devices?

From what I understand is the tower operators knew about how long it takes to get from control point to control point within their limits. If a train was delayed or made up time the operator would know. Nothing was ever really done about speeding until something bad happened. This from several people I've talked to. I have no first hand knowledge other than Amtrak on the NEC timing us between points

[buzz456]

Here's a good story from the past. My wife and I decided that it would be good to take our kids on a train ride thinking at that time that passenger trains might just disappear. It was somewhere in the late '70s. We boarded in Chicago and headed for Flagstaff to be picked up by the grandparents. We had some railroad honchos hooked to the back of the train until we got Oklahoma City if memory serves. By the time they got left off we were pretty far behind schedule. Well somewhere in New Mexico I got to chatting with the porter who was standing by the half open door between cars and asked him what he was doing. He said this was a real good stretch of track and the engineer was making up for lost time. He kept looking at his watch so I asked what was that about. "Oh just timing between mileposts. Right now we are going around 94, back aways we were doin 97. Like I said this is a real good section of track. We always make up time along here if we're behind."
I'm pretty sure we were on Santa Fe trackage but that was a long time ago.

[JohnS]

Here's a good story from the past. My wife and I decided that it would be good to take our kids on a train ride thinking at that time that passenger trains might just disappear. It was somewhere in the late '70s. We boarded in Chicago and headed for Flagstaff to be picked up by the grandparents. We had some railroad honchos hooked to the back of the train until we got Oklahoma City if memory serves. By the time they got left off we were pretty far behind schedule. Well somewhere in New Mexico I got to chatting with the porter who was standing by the half open door between cars and asked him what he was doing. He said this was a real good stretch of track and the engineer was making up for lost time. He kept looking at his watch so I asked what was that about. "Oh just timing between mileposts. Right now we are going around 94, back aways we were doin 97. Like I said this is a real good section of track. We always make up time along here if we're behind."
I'm pretty sure we were on Santa Fe trackage but that was a long time ago.

We still use measured miles to make sure our speed and speedometer is correct.

[jalsina]

Here's a good story from the past. My wife and I decided that it would be good to take our kids on a train ride thinking at that time that passenger trains might just disappear. It was somewhere in the late '70s. We boarded in Chicago and headed for Flagstaff to be picked up by the grandparents. We had some railroad honchos hooked to the back of the train until we got Oklahoma City if memory serves. By the time they got left off we were pretty far behind schedule. Well somewhere in New Mexico I got to chatting with the porter who was standing by the half open door between cars and asked him what he was doing. He said this was a real good stretch of track and the engineer was making up for lost time. He kept looking at his watch so I asked what was that about. "Oh just timing between mileposts. Right now we are going around 94, back aways we were doin 97. Like I said this is a real good section of track. We always make up time along here if we're behind."
I'm pretty sure we were on Santa Fe trackage but that was a long time ago.

So in the 70s, today´s federal forbidden top speed (80 mph and beyond) was not yet in place?

[GERUNIMO625]

So in the 70s, today´s federal forbidden top speed (80 mph and beyond) was not yet in place?

Alot of things were done in the 70's that isn't done now. Buzz's Engineer was probably drunk, stoned, or a combination thereof. Darn near every rule we have is written in blood.

Cool story Buzz!

[buzz456]

So in the 70s, today´s federal forbidden top speed (80 mph and beyond) was not yet in place?

Alot of things were done in the 70's that isn't done now. Buzz's Engineer was probably drunk, stoned, or a combination thereof. Darn near every rule we have is written in blood.

Cool story Buzz!

I doubt any of the above from what the man was relating to me. Much earlier when I was a young lad the 'Cities' trains used to blast through Roselle, IL on regular crossings at at least the posted 79 mph without anyone thinking about it. We used to stand out behind my dad's shop and watch them blow by. You could hardly hear the horn on the first tone

[GSkid]

When I was talking to the UP signal maintenance supervisor for the Feather River/Donner Pass routes on my trip, I asked him about this very subject. He said UP goes as far as breaking out the radar gun to catch speeders if needed. But he basically said what other people here have said. If you are speeding for a bit and make no attempt to slow down in a timely manner, then you get popped. Otherwise they understand trains will sometimes go over the limit a couple MPH for very short periods of time.

A question on this subject for the road engineers here....

A train has to keep on a schedule so the products hauled get to their destination in a timely manner. If you are behind schedule due to traffic congestion, is there any real pressure (consequences) on engineers to speed a little in order to make up for lost time? Since the feds could slam them for speeding if ever caught, it must be very stressful.

Speaking of stress. My friend's husband was an engineer in Germany and became one for UP on Donner Pass after they got married. She told me he had to have an oxygen tank and mask in the cab for when they get to the middle of Donner Pass's longest tunnel because the very low oxygen levels can make them pass out. I'm kinda surprised because they seemed to have installed fans and ventilation on a lot of other very long railroad tunnels in North America. Maybe it's too long to justify the cost?!?! Who knows?!

Anyways he works in Oregon now as the guy that shuttles engineers to and from their trains in the yard and other duties. It was a cut in pay, but he took it for the consistent hours compared to the feast or famine of a low seniority engineer. They offered him (basically begging him) the job of trainmaster for the Portland area and he declined. My friend said it's such a stressful job that nobody wants it. A few of the trainmasters died from stress related heart attacks while still in the job position and the rest eventually just quit and go on to something else at the railroad. Kinda hard to recruit people when everybody knows what a meat grinder of a position it is.

[buzz456]

Boo hoo. My father in law was a trainmaster for thirty years.

[AmericanSteam]

Most of the career scenarios that I have run I need to run at.7 MPH over track speed to get close and some I have never been able to come close. One with the GTEL comes to mind. I have given up on career scenarios for this reason. A good QD, standard or free roam is all I do now.

[GERUNIMO625]

I asked him about this very subject. He said UP goes as far as breaking out the radar gun to catch speeders if needed.

I can attest to this, its true.

My friend said it's such a stressful job that nobody wants it. A few of the trainmasters died from stress related heart attacks while still in the job position and the rest eventually just quit and go on to something else at the railroad. Kinda hard to recruit people when everybody knows what a meat grinder of a position it is.

Probably got heart attacks from sitting around eating Mickey D's all day. Its stressful because they make it stressful (self-induced). Messing/ruining people's lives, making every effort to make a relatively efficient system as inefficient as possible, just so they can get promoted to Senior Door Knob Polisher.
I agree with Buzz, Boo Hoo!

It doesn't help they hire guys straight from college with no railroading experience and expect them to succeed. I laugh my butt off every time I see a 23 year old manager (whom has probably never shaved a day in his life) tell one of our 30+ year career railroaders how he is going to do something.

Take care