Too easy to accidentally move brake lever into emergency (EU07)

[weezzah]

 

Currently it's too easy to accidentally move the brake lever into the emergency position in the EU07. The reason why this happens is because if the brake key [ 3 ] is held down while the lever is in any position above the initial position, then the brake lever will move quickly into the emergency position. This is probably meant to be a helpful feature, but it's causing more problems than it solves to be honest.

Test Case 1

• Set brake lever into the running position by pressing [ 6 ]

Situation: If the driver thinks the brake lever is in the initial position then the drivers reflex is to press and hold [ 3 ] to apply brake. Surprise, the brake lever will now quickly move into the emergency position, and the driver is left thinking the brake lever is buggy.

Test Case 2

• Press [ 6 ] for running position
• Press [ 3 ] for initial position
• Apply a little brake with the [ 3 ] key
• Release brakes with the [ 4 ] key until the brake lever visually snaps into the initial position

Situation: The driver has left the brake lever in the initial position and thinks braking can be applied like it did before by pressing and holding the [ 3 ] and [ 9 ] keys.

What the driver is unaware of is that when the lever snapped into the initial position, it is now set to move quickly into emergency breaking if you press and hold the [ 3 ] key. Again, feels like a bug because the lever did not move like the driver intended.

Solution
I think it would be better to keep the controls simple and predictable:

• Press [ 3 ] or [ 9 ] to move brake lever into a detent
• When in the initial to full service range, press and hold [ 3 ] or [ 9 ] to apply or release brakes

As simple as that. There's no need for a press and hold for emergency braking feature because we already have the [ 1 ] key which immediately puts the lever into emergency 😉

Here's the thread that this bug report is based on:

These are the brake lever positions in the EU07:
- Disabled
- Fill
- Running
- Initial
- Full Service
- Re-Application
- Emergency Braking

This bug may apply to other locomotives with the same lever behavior.

 

Edited February 1, 2023 by weezzah

[Gazz292]

i've had no issues with the EU07's brake lever, and i've been almost exclusively driving that train, got more than 4k miles racked up in it. 

If you keep tapping the apply key it will go to emergency position, but hold the apply key down and it'll gently move round to the detent, and then into emergency if you keep the key held down. 

[weezzah]

It is possible to drive without noticing these issues as the fast movement will only happen if you hold the key for half a second or whatever under certain conditions. If you do mostly small taps to change between the upper detents and only do longer presses when you're in the initial to full service range then you're good, no problems whatsoever (with the exception of test case 2). But from the referenced thread above I had to investigate to see what caused the unwanted fast movement of the lever as I've experienced it myself a couple of times. The issue was how the fast emergency brake feature is interleaved with normal brake operations in the upper range. The lever implementation seems a little contrived to me. Keep it simple. It's just a brake lever. And we can emergency brake with the 1 key anyways.

An inconsistent behavior with the lever is described in test case 2: If you set the lever to the initial position (press 6 then 3) then the fast movement will not occur with a long press of the 3 key. But it will occur if you manually move the lever up and snap it into the initial position with the 9 key, and then press and hold the 3 key to apply brake. Why is that even a thing?

[Gazz292]

not sure what you mean by the upper detents, 

The brake lever in the EU07 has an off detent, a fill detent, a run detnet, then it's smooth all the way to the full service detent... then re-application and finally emergency detents. 

 

I regularly hold the key down for a second to move the lever around to about 3/4 to slow down fast at a station, then when the train is down to about 10kph, i press the key to snap the lever to the 'run' position, and the brakes will be releasing but still on enough to stop the train without a jolt... then apply the brake lever again (that's how most real drivers do it in the cab view videos i watch) 

 

Now occasionally if i repeatedly tap the keys to adjust the lever position it will sometimes move around seemingly on it's own, right to emergency if i don't tap the release key, 

 

However, i just noticed this is in single player part of the forum, and i drive in multiplayer,  so i may well be talking out my arse (happens a lot) and the lever in the EU/EP07 in single player acts differently to how it does in multiplayer.

[Gazz292]

i've figured it out,  

i do drive differently.... whenever i get ready to brake, i tap the apply key to put the brake handle into the 'initial' position, then i press and hold down the apply key to move the lever around to the pressure reduction i need to slow down. 

 

If i do not put the brake lever into the 'initial' position first, pressing and holding the apply key does indeed rapidly move the lever around into emergency position before you have time to react. 

 

So it is just as you said, the way i drive / handle the brakes means i never noticed this behaviour.

[weezzah]

19 minutes ago, Gazz292 said:

i do drive differently.... whenever i get ready to brake, i tap the apply key to put the brake handle into the 'initial' position, then i press and hold down the apply key to move the lever around to the pressure reduction i need to slow down. 

That's the key to success in the EU07 😉

[krzysk]

And watch manometers

from manual:  to brake pull service brake handle towards you. Drop 0.05-0.2 MPa from main pipe depending on desired braking force. Watch the middle manometer. Left one shows only pressure in brake cylinders of locomotive

[Gazz292]

The 'issue' is that if you press and hold the key to apply the train brake lever, it will move very fast and before you have time to react it's in the emergency position. 

I learnt early on that if you press the train brake apply key once briefly, it moves the handle from the 'run' to the 'initial' position, then when you press and hold the apply key again, it will move the lever slowly around the quadrant, all the way to the stop before the 're-apply / full service brake' position... this can take ~5 seconds to move the full length of the apply brakes portion of the valve. 

So, the handle will move rapidly between the main notches, but when you press the apply key once, it puts it into the main braking range where it moves slower than before, giving you much more precision on applying the brakes.

 

 

i kind of see that as the best way to simulate an analog lever with unequal notches on the keyboard, as the lever in real life would have different strength notches / detents, meaning that to pull the lever from the run to initial position, you'd need to give it a little tug to move it over the detent between those 2 position, 
then it seems to be smooth until the notch that tells you that you're about to move the lever into the 're-apply / full service brake' position,  then after that there would be a much harder detent you have to move over to get into emergency. 

[weezzah]

Using the 6 key for setting the brake lever into the running position is really useful to avoid accidental emergency braking too. From running it's just a single tap on the 3 key to get to the braking range, and then apply brake as needed. The 6 key acts kind of like a home button and you don't get lost. Also, I don't think I've had accidental emergency braking happen to me since I made this thread and got all nerdy about it either 😄

For documentational purposes I went ahead and recorded both test cases of the accidental emergency braking.

On 2/1/2023 at 11:29 PM, weezzah said:

Test Case 1

• Set brake lever into the running position by pressing [ 6 ]

Situation: If the driver thinks the brake lever is in the initial position then the drivers reflex is to press and hold [ 3 ] to apply brake. Surprise, the brake lever will now quickly move into the emergency position, and the driver is left thinking the brake lever is buggy.

So here the lever is in running position, then I press and hold 3 and this happens:

On 2/1/2023 at 11:29 PM, weezzah said:

Test Case 2

• Press [ 6 ] for running position
• Press [ 3 ] for initial position
• Apply a little brake with the [ 3 ] key
• Release brakes with the [ 4 ] key until the brake lever visually snaps into the initial position

Situation: The driver has left the brake lever in the initial position and thinks braking can be applied like it did before by pressing and holding the [ 3 ] and [ 9 ] keys.

What the driver is unaware of is that when the lever snapped into the initial position, it is now set to move quickly into emergency breaking if you press and hold the [ 3 ] key. Again, feels like a bug because the lever did not move like the driver intended.

What's also weird here is the decreasing movement speed of the lever until it snaps and stops into the initial position. From there I do the same as in case 1, press and hold the 3 key: