Canadian Route Coming Soon from RSC... [Rogers/Kicking Horse Pass]

[JohnTrainHead]

Now the route has achievements on Steam, as well as the upcoming SD60M and P42DC.

http://steamcommunity.com/stats/Railworks/achievements

The route's name will be "Canadian Mountain Passes", and will include a GEVO. Looks like its release is not far off.

[NSrailfan6130]

They could throw this in there, its a rainbow CN cylindrical hopper painted by the Atlas Model Railroad Co... I'm not being serious but it is pretty cool

[JohnTrainHead]

New article on Engine-Driver this morning.

http://www.engine-driver.com/article/sh ... ain-passes

Some great screenshots of the route and the GEVO.

[awaken1977]

Sadly there is no SD90MACs

[5292nate]

That looks REALLY good!

[NSrailfan6130]

I heard there was an sd80mac in the making or at least going to be in the making by someone on the site, not for sure, but i really hope so..

[NSrailfan6130]

I guess they did fix the paint scheme on the Canadian Cylindrical Hoppers

[TDHenderson]

Let's hope these new braking changes they describe will be portable to other locomotives. That sounds very promising.

From the article.

"Enhanced Train Physics: It’s All in the Brakes

Previous North American freight train consists have simulated a kind of ‘ideal’ braking system, which releases and applies the entire train brakes very quickly and recharges itself almost instantly, giving consistently strong braking whenever the driver has required it. In the past, this has taken much of the challenge out of controlling a heavy train on a descending grade. However, step into the cab of the CP ES44AC on Canadian Mountain Passes and you will experience a significantly more realistic and more challenging drive.

Applying the brakes requires much more forward planning: recharging the air system (Brake Pipe pressure and so on) is not an instant process, and you need to plan and practice your braking to avoid completely discharging the system and entirely losing the brakes (with the exception of Emergency Brakes). Lowering the brake pipe pressure to apply brakes is a slow process on a 10,000 ton train: there’s a lot of air to expel from the braking system and it can take several nerve-wracking moments before your brakes even begin to apply, let alone be working hard enough to be effective. Again, the secret is to plan ahead and apply your brakes before the grade, so that by the time you get to the grade they're already set about right – though not enough to stall the train.

The new braking physics on this locomotive also encourages a driving practice common among real engineers: set the air brakes to a particular level (which you'll find by practice and preference) at the top of a grade so that they don't quite slow you down on the shallowest grade you'll do in that area. Then, use your dynamic brakes to finely adjust your braking. Other than an initial 10-second set-up time, you can adjust the dynamic brakes very quickly to react to the changing grade as you descend. If you want to drive the route without getting to grips with the intricacies of the braking system, that’s fine too. Within the scenarios, you can alter the skill level required by the braking system by pressing CTRL+Shift+1 or CTRL+Shift+2 to toggle between Easiest, Easy, Medium and Hard, or you can simply switch Train Simulator to simple controls on the main settings menu and drive using a simplified braking system more similar to that found in other North American trains."

Trevor

[NSrailfan6130]

Those CP locos would be great with the ES44AC repaints by Jessie James

[buzz456]

Pretty slick eh?

[mrennie]

Let's hope these new braking changes they describe will be portable to other locomotives. That sounds very promising.

From the article.

"Enhanced Train Physics: It’s All in the Brakes

Previous North American freight train consists have simulated a kind of ‘ideal’ braking system, which releases and applies the entire train brakes very quickly and recharges itself almost instantly, giving consistently strong braking whenever the driver has required it. In the past, this has taken much of the challenge out of controlling a heavy train on a descending grade. However, step into the cab of the CP ES44AC on Canadian Mountain Passes and you will experience a significantly more realistic and more challenging drive.

Applying the brakes requires much more forward planning: recharging the air system (Brake Pipe pressure and so on) is not an instant process, and you need to plan and practice your braking to avoid completely discharging the system and entirely losing the brakes (with the exception of Emergency Brakes). Lowering the brake pipe pressure to apply brakes is a slow process on a 10,000 ton train: there’s a lot of air to expel from the braking system and it can take several nerve-wracking moments before your brakes even begin to apply, let alone be working hard enough to be effective. Again, the secret is to plan ahead and apply your brakes before the grade, so that by the time you get to the grade they're already set about right – though not enough to stall the train.

The new braking physics on this locomotive also encourages a driving practice common among real engineers: set the air brakes to a particular level (which you'll find by practice and preference) at the top of a grade so that they don't quite slow you down on the shallowest grade you'll do in that area. Then, use your dynamic brakes to finely adjust your braking. Other than an initial 10-second set-up time, you can adjust the dynamic brakes very quickly to react to the changing grade as you descend. If you want to drive the route without getting to grips with the intricacies of the braking system, that’s fine too. Within the scenarios, you can alter the skill level required by the braking system by pressing CTRL+Shift+1 or CTRL+Shift+2 to toggle between Easiest, Easy, Medium and Hard, or you can simply switch Train Simulator to simple controls on the main settings menu and drive using a simplified braking system more similar to that found in other North American trains."

Trevor

What's innovative about this?

[buzz456]

It will be innovative for RSC.

[TDHenderson]

It will be innovative for RSC.

Exactly.

[LtMorke]

I expect to see everyone complaining about how the brakes take too long to release, how they're "unrealistic", and that they need to be fixed, like the Surfliner's F95.

[cor726]

I am excited for Rogers / Kicking horse passes. It's another mountain pass route but we get 2 passes which is cool. I also really like Fraser and Caribou so I expect it will be a good route.