Railfan Gaming > MSTS - Stalling on Marias Pass

I've recently downloaded the updated loco physics for Dash-9 locomotives. Overall I'm very pleased with it; it seems much more realistic than before (harder that is).

However, I came upon a slight problem in the 'Noon mixed freight' activity over Marias Pass (one of the original activities). I keep stalling over the grade at Bison siding, a few minutes after the beginning of the activity.

The train is 3 C44-9W and 50 cars. You are routed through the siding (without any useful purpose, there is no opposing traffic at this moment and location of the activity). The program doesn't list any speed restriction through the turnout, but I kept my train under 20mph so as not to derail the train or damage the freight.

Just after the siding entrance, there is a steep grade (Bison). I accelerated my train to 25mph as soon as the last car passed through the turnout, but it steadily dropped to 0. I stalled. Worst : even in run 8 with sander on, my train began rolling backward down the grade until I put a full brake application.

Before downloading the updated loco physics, I was able to run fine over this grade. Now I can't. Any suggestion? Could I run faster through the turnout, so as to approach the hill at 30 or 35mph? What are the actual speed limit through them? 15, 20 or 25mph?

Beside, three C44-9W for a relatively short 50 cars mixed freight (with some empties) would seem sufficient to me to climb a relatively steep hill, right? This is no 15000 tons coal drag.

Perhaps real engineers having run real trains on the real Marias Pass could enlighten me.

If nothing can be done about it, perhaps I'll just add another C44-9W or an SD40-2 to my consist. Or modify the routing so I can run on the main without having to negociate this switch.

JF

Try running with helpers , I found I have not broke apart with helpers or came to compete stop .

this might help if not there is a bug in the program .

I think hitting the hill with a bit more speed will help. Check the BNSF employee timetable. Under Item 1(C)Speed - Switches and Turnouts of the Hi-Line Subdivision...On siding and dual control turnouts at Bison 35MPH for freight and passenger.

That is a pretty steep spot and I have found as long as I'm doing 35 at the bottom I'll crest at around 15.

Good Luck!

The same thing happen to me tonight, this is what I did to get pass this problem . First I add two more units to my train and that give me total of 23,600 H.P., then I open up the throttle to 8 as I pass the east double signal at bison. that got me over the hill !!! my speed drop to about 15 M.P.H. but I got over the hill.

I had helpers too , so maybe that help .

I've read that the grades on Marias (in MSTS, not in reality) are actually to the tune of 6-8 percent instead of the expected 1-2.5 percent.

Hello,
The grades in MSTS are quite a ways off. Bison is a 1.0% grade in real life and in MSTS its more than 4%!

I'm not sure if your using my Loco Physics Update or the other one I saw for the dash 9. I know that mine is VERY close to the real thing and that about 3.1 HPT is the minimum for the way too steep grades in MSTS.

Wurger

If those grades are around 4% there is something very wrong with the loco physics.

It's the track. I dont really know what the grades are for sure but I do know that my version of the loco physics are as close in performance to the real thing as possible. I have tested them extensivly on various grades on a test route I created just for this purpose and compaired all of the results with real world data.

I would like to find out the actual grades in the sim at JAVA and BISON. Anyone done this yet?

Wurger

The MSFT grades are totally unrealistic. Using what should be sufficient power I continually stall westbound near the west end of Bison. Max grade anywhere on this sub is 1.8%.

Man, I believe the grades on MSTS range anywhere between 3-9%!! I mean, come on, I should be able to make the grade with a 110 car worm 2-2 DPU...but I end up stalling at the end of JAVA...If I had the time and patience, i'd totally redo the trackage on the entire route itself. Microsoft wanted to make this a challenge, but we don't need 8% GRADES.

Marias is 1.2 to 2% (Java being the steepest)

Brian B.