Railworks America

Hello everyone, this is my first post on Railworks of America. I have been following these boards for about 6 months now and I have to say the quality of ppl is just amazng. No trash talking or insulting, vary rare in todays standards.

OK I just bought the Big Boy addon from ICC and what an amazing looking model. My question is about the engines pulling power, I need to know if Im doing it all wrong or if this is normal behavior. I started out on a freeroam senario, Challenger at Barstow-Barstow to San Bernadino. The area of the map starts you off on a 1.9% grade. I used 19 flatbeds with Sherman tanks on them and hooked the Big Boy to the front. Now before Railworks 2 came along there were options to play simple, intermediate or expert. With Railworks 2 it seems that u can only toggle the simple operations box in the options, so i dont know if there is a true difference between intermediat and extert now.

Anyways, I dont have the simple option checked so i have access to the steam engines throddle and reverser. I started by putting the throttle and reverser to max, dont know why reverser only goes to 75%, and the best I could do with the Big Boy was about 4.3 mph. I checked a few other steam engines out, Southern Pacific, and the Challenger, both were worse off than the Big Boy. Hell the Southern Pacific even started to be pulled by the train cars.

I then hooked up the 19 cars to a ES44-AC diesal and that locomotive was able to get the train up to 12mph rather quickly. I know i read something about dieasles being able to use all of there horsepower from the beginning while the steam engines need to build up. I dont know if this is the case or if Im doing something in correctly or if the pulling physics or off for steam engines. I just thought the Big Boy would be able to muscle through that load..then again 19 tanks could be pretty heavy. Any advice would be appreciated.

everything you are experiencing in game is normal (at leas in the game). as for the hill, steam engines do need to buld up speed on a flat grade before trying a grade, and should be at 10MPH. although it is possible to start on a hill it is very hard. i assume you were using the flatcars had the sherman tanks on them. i think those flatcars were scaled to a realistic weight, the sherman does weigh around 30 tons. but if you use other freight you should have better luck. i guess someone could alwayse make a mod where the steam engines have more climbing power. i can only get the bigboy over the hill on the castle rock rr with only 5 shermans on flatcars and a caboose. with other freight it can be up to 12 without stalling. i should mention that when using some steam locos, when the game first loads the boiler pressure is not full, such is the case with the GS-4 and the BigBoy. so all i can say is just wait about 1 minute if you start on a graid to let the pressure buld up.

Hi, Juggernaut, and welcome! Have you driven any steam loco's before? They are a very different breed than diesel or electric, for sure. It's a combination of using the reverser and the regulator. (make sure brakes are released, LOL) Now, I use the old style HUD (press F4, then F5 twice and F3) and keyboard controls. Starting off, give her 100% reverser and regulator. As speed levels off, back down the reverser, then regulator. Alternate between the two. Keep checking your speed, and as it levels off, back down the controls. At top speed you should be at about 30% regulator and about 40% reverser, or less. It takes a lot of practice, and each steam loco is different. (IIRC, there's a Challenger pushing that consist of tanks, too)

If you want a nice, free scenario for the Big Boy, get the "Billionaire Benefactor" run from Steam. Have fun!

That sounds just like my first experience trying to drive a steamer. Pushing the controls to max like a diesel will not work. I had to do some research and as Chris pointed out, it's all about balancing the throttle (regulator) with the reverser. I start with the reverser full on and start easing up the throttle and usually start moving at about 10-20%. At 5mph I will back off the reverser 5% from max (yea, I'm always in a hurry, lol). Increase throttle slightly. Reduce reverser another 5% again at 10mph. Increase throttle moderately. At 15-20 mph I'm usually at 40-50% throttle and 80% of full on the reverser (for the BB, that's around 60%). Then I start reducing the reverser considerably and the throttle slightly over the next couple of miles. Watch your Steam Generated and Steam Usage guages; keep them even. If you leave the reverser too high for too long you'll run out of steam.

Practice! (I'm still trying to get the hang of the little Consolidated that came with the Challenger!)

Tori

Have not used it myself but there is a steam tutorial act. Stmtut10.zip. Can't remember for sure
where i found it but can be at TS.com
Ton

Hey guys thank you for the replys, they were very informative. I do know about working the throttle and reverser, however still practicing to get it correct. The other day I tried pulling 50 double stack container cars...I dont know if they were under load or not. However the big boy pulled them just fine, the ground was level though. I was able to get the big boy pulling them up to about 56 mph...I thought that was pretty darn good by herself.

Now with the steam driving info u guys gave me how would i apply it with the situation I had on the 1.9% grade and 19 tanks? I understand that i need to start backing off the reverser and throttle but I could not even get the engine to hit 5 mph with both throttle and reverser maxed. So unless im doing something wrong I may be trying to push her to hard at an unrealistic task, u tell me. But then again I got one diesel to pull that same load under the same conditions at 12mph.

Im no expert but the more I play with this game the more I can appreciate the physics that have gone into it. I know everyone gets something different in enjoyment from this game. Some like to build and create, some like to paint trains, some like to just drive. I really enjoy grabbing a free roam scenario making a load and then swaping in different engines to see how they react differently. So far the diesels look like their winning.

One quick question, how do I know if a container is loaded. I know there is an option in the world editor in the bottom right that says consist or something like that, is that what i need to press? The problem i have with that is if I have that option marked and I try to put out a car with containers it come out as a flat bed and I dont know how to load it up.

Once again thank you for the replys and Im sorry if I am asking to many questions..its just that this is all new to me, but im getting it and boy is it fun.

When you place a car on the track just double click it and a fly out will be available on the right hand side. You will have to mouse over the fly out to get it to display. You then can click the check mark and the car will be loaded. If you have a string of cars then on the left side bottom click the consist button and it will work for the whole consist.