Kicking cars

[opeth82]

Some roll... some don't... Problem is the ones that don't hold up the show, and the other problem is that the ones that do roll good end up derailing the others. Even with a slow speed. Is there a way to get all the cars to roll great with a semi-realistic kicking speed and couple up without derailing? I am aware that Route-Riter will allow mass value changing. All I need is input figures to allow me to classify cars. Possibly building myself a small little hump yard to tinker with. Thank you.

[Kentucky86]

I am not sure that MSTS is quite up to that as yet....I have tried the same thing I think try to be mindful what cars work better than others and perhaps use those?

I am sure someone with more smarts than me will come up

BP

[inflammable]

I've been able to kick cars. Most often at the Oxford Siding on the L&HR Route. I think the things that help out the most are to ensure that all of your couplers in the WAGs and ENGs are the same, and are good values. If you search out OttoDad on these forums, and go to his website on his Signature, and get some of his couplers, then apply them to everything. EngMod and perhaps RouteRiter will help you do this. And also using the BIN helps out. My BIN isn't even the 'Latest' that everyone else keeps up with, so if you have the latest, it may perform differently.

Also, the cars basically go into emergency when you cut them loose, just as they should. Remember, MSTS is designed for driving trains, not switching them. So something else you may want to consider is to lower the MaxBrakeForce on each car. Moving in that direction it would seem like you would need a special set of 'Kicking' cars, that roll better after they are cut loose in motion. If you do that, you might could also remove the 'Emergency_Brake_Reservoir' from the BrakeEquipmentType line in the wags, and see if that helps you out.

If you keep your hump yard simple, then it should work out, as you can align only the two nearest switches for your path. The down grade will help them roll.

What worked for me at the time, was to accelerate up to about 10 or 11 MPH, and when the last car that I wanted to keep first touched the switchpoints, kill the power, move the reverser to the opposite direction, and apply the throttle up to 60+ percent. As soon as the train showed signs of slowing, uncouple the cars that you wanted to drop. They should roll off down the track, and your train should continue slowing. Then reduce power, and apply brakes. If I used just the brakes to slow my portion of the cars, then it would take the same amount of space to slow to a stop as the kicked car. Using the reverser and locomotive power seems to work better for this purpose in the sim.

As you probably know, the real world crew would have isolated, and bled off the brakes on the cars they wanted to kick. The engineer would apply power towards the siding, conductor/switchman would lift the coupler release lever, and signal the engineer to stop (radios are awesome for this). The Engineer would then just apply large amounts of brakes, and his cars would stop, and the cut cars would roll away. The speed of the cut loose cars would depend on the speed of the train when the engineer began to stop them, and the amount of descent of the siding. The crew would vary the signals to the engineer based on how far it was to the nearest cars on that siding, and how long the remaining train was.

James

[Richard]

Hello Kenny,
I've used the same method that James describes above with pretty good success. The old timers sometime refereed to this method as plugging the engine. I don't know how the phrase got started, but it was also used in the real world :) Sidings with a slight down grade work the best. The only thing we cannot do is what is referred to as a "Dutch drop" or some folks call it a "flying setout" as there is not a way to control a switch once the engine has gone past the frog.

Take care,
Rich S.

[funnelfan]

You have to edit the .wag file so the line MaxBrakeForce = 0 so the car doesn't go into emergency as soon as it's cut away from the train. Then when you go to switch, anytime you are going to place the first car in a track, you'll need to go down there and tie the handbrake on the car before you let it go. Then you can send all the other freewheeling cars up against it. But don't kick them too fast, otherwise they will derail. 4mph and less is a good kicking speed. I modified a whole set of freightcars in this manner so I could switch cars in a yard like that. I simply made a duplicate .wag of a existing car, modified it, and put the prefix NB (No Brakes) in the file to make it stand out from the others.

[Turbo Bill]

On the C&NW vr kicking cars is heavily promoted as our equipment rolls quite nicely and our switch engines have good brakes. Actually the flying Drop works quite well in MSTs when properly setup. We have one activity were the player drops 11 loaded aggregate cars by two SD24's to get them on the other end of the engines. Works like butter.

[lenglel]

How do you do that Bill? Set up the player path
for the siding over a manual switch and the sim
throws the switch for you after the engine is
past it?

Lloyd

[Turbo Bill]

Yes, that is correct. You path the player train for the main and then throw the switch and put the power on the siding and the switch will return to it's normal position after the engines clear the main and the cars roll down the main. How we did it on the road I hogged on. This way we didn't have to worry about grabbing the cars and stopping them. We would just come back out with the power after they rolled by and go get them.

[Richard]

Hello Bill,
Never thought of doing a flying drop that way, good info ;) Most of the roads around my area did a flying drop by having a brakeman ride the cut of cars to be dropped and another brakeman standing at the switchstand. The engine would accelerate then brake slightly to add slack. The first brakeman would pull the cut lever then climb the ladder up to the brake wheel. Once the engine cleared the switch the second brakeman would line the switch for the siding and the first brakeman would control the speed of the cut of cars with the hand brake allowing the cars to coast right up to the loading dock. They were so good at doing this, you'd think the cars were spotted there by an engine :)

Take care,
Rich S.

[Turbo Bill]

We did ours with only one groundman, that's why we dropped the cars on the main. Usually this was done to turn our train at the far end of our run for the return trip. Most I dropped by was 24 cars, they were moving slow when the last one cleared but they did clear.