Modding realistic brakes

[mrgreen]

Hi.

I've been trying to change the airbrakes of the ES44DC that comes with Marias Pass.

I'm not exactly sure on the correct timings and behavior of the brake system in real life, but I did some testing with the ES44DC in Run8.

This was tested with a 70 car train and 6 engines.

Time to get a full service application was about 55 seconds. When releasing the brakes it took 16 seconds for the brake cylinder to release and about 6 minutes and 30s for the brake pipe to recharge.

I changed the Maxapplicationrate to 0.47 and the application is the same as the tested train. When trying to get realistic release behavior I've run into problems; the brake cylinder stays at 38psi until the brake pipe has been fully recharged and then releases. This obviously is completely wrong and would mean that even the smallest of applications would mean a full stop.

I read about the fix in the "Realistic-ish Braking" thread and Simer4 said he had gotten rid of the distributor section, and it seemed like that would let me release the brakes before the brake pipe pressure had been fully recharged.

First I deleted the whole distributor section and just kept </Distributor> like in his attached text. That resulted in a SBHH every time I tried to click on the locomotive in free roam or start a standard scenario.
I then deleted everything from the distributor section and tried it again, this time I didn't get any crashes but instead the brakes behave really strangely. The equalizer reservoir display in the cab of the loco is at 0, at all times; even though it seems to be charged when looking at the F5 HUD. The brakes also release automatically when the brake cylinder pressure has reached its "target" after applying some brake.

My question is: what did I do wrong, and is there a way to mod the brakes so that the brake cylinder releases quicker than it takes for the BP to recharge?
Also, is there any way for the ER to "react" quicker to new applications, i.e if you apply 8 pounds of brake the ER will drop to 82 almost instantaneously.

Thanks in advance

/William

[Chacal]

I don't know about the brakes but I know </Distributor> is not valid XML, this is the cause of your SBHH.
You need <Distributor></Distributor>, or its short form <Distributor/>.

[mrgreen]

Thanks,

I modified the XML as you said (<Distributor/>) and that sorted the problem of the brakes releasing automatically when reaching the target pressure. The ER number on the cab LCD display still shows 0 (even though it shows a different number on the F5 HUD) and the brake cylinder still releases slower than the brake pipe.

[GLRX12]

If they hired real American Engineers as consultants.....the brake system would be flawless. Granted I know nothing about dynamic brakes (never had them) but I can tell you exactly how a 26L, a K14, or a 6ET/8ET system should work!