[REPOSTED] Brake issues for a relative newbie

[TexAvery]

Hey everyone, I've been running into a couple of issues with brakes that I was hoping you all could help with. I've searched these forums and others but haven't found an answer yet.

I've been running a few steam locomotives and encountered this, but we'll use Dick Cowen's USRA 0-6-0 for the example.

First thing I've noticed is that on the F4 HUD, there's no way to see the brake pipe pressure. It shows up just fine on the F5 display, but not on the F4 display. It's kind of essential because that locomotive has manual lapping brakes and I'd really like to know how much of a reduction I'm taking without bouncing back and forth between the two displays. Is there a way to fix this?

The second issue is the brake pipe pressure itself. I prefer to use the automatic fireman. On most locomotives I don't have an issue, but on some I see a show and steady decrease in how much my brake pipe recharges upon release. I can get a few sets in with the train brake, but after that, I'll see a drop of a tenth of a pounds each time. I'll use the brake from 90 psi and the pressure goes back up to only 89.9. Use it again and release it and it goes back up to 89.8 and so on and so forth.

Now I've seen a tutorial that told me how to use the small and large ejectors to recharge the brake pipe (via the main reservoir?) but I don't seem to have control of either of those with the automatic fireman. What can I do to solve this?

I've had a bit of experience editing .bin files in MSTS, but not this new train simulator. Can anyone lay this stuff out for me, please?

[RailWanderer]

This has been an issues with all the Britkit USRA locos. It has something to do with the display to the HUD within one of the locomotive control files. I'm not any help I just understand what your problems are. One of the files has the actual parameters for this gauge in it, and it is either not active or has a flaw in the syntax. At one time I had copied the HSC K-4 file over to the USRA Pacific loco and had some resemblance of brakes, but now I can't remember how I did it, and after a large drive crash, I lost all my files.

[RailWanderer]

Ok, I believe I have found it. I tried this on both the USRA Pacific 4-6-2 and the USRA Mikado 2-8-2 and it worked on both and should work on all Britkits. Below you will find two images of an excerpt of the Engine files of one of the locos, all are the same as Dick just copied one engine file for each engine and made mods as required, typical procedure. The first is the original and the second the modifications, and these are shown in a salmon highlight (ignore the green highlight), so by making a new .xml file, or modifying the old .xml file and making the changes, and then saving and running the .xml on the serz.exe file you should get a working brake gauge. Remember to delete the blueprint .PAK file in the STEAM folder under Britkits before restarting the sim.

ORIGINAL



MODIFIED



I knew it was a rather simple fix, but couldn't remember the fix off the top of my head.......I hope it helps.

[Overshoe]

Thanks RW
I used your fix on the USRA 4-6-2 Pacific and it works well there too.

[RailWanderer]

Thanks Tom, I found the release part of the train braking a bit short, only 4-5%, at the bottom of the HUD.

[gwgardner]

Hello,

The images referred to here, with the fix, are no longer available. Any chance you can reup? Or provide the text for the fix? Thanks for any help.

Ok, I believe I have found it. I tried this on both the USRA Pacific 4-6-2 and the USRA Mikado 2-8-2 and it worked on both and should work on all Britkits. Below you will find two images of an excerpt of the Engine files of one of the locos, all are the same as Dick just copied one engine file for each engine and made mods as required, typical procedure. The first is the original and the second the modifications, and these are shown in a salmon highlight (ignore the green highlight), so by making a new .xml file, and making the changes, and then saving and running the .xml on the serz.exe file you should get a working brake gauge. Remember to delete the blueprint file in the STEAM folder under Britkits before restarting the sim.

ORIGINAL



MODIFIED



I knew it was a rather simple fix, but couldn't remember the fix off the top of my head.......I hope it helps.