EE 3B Battery Loco?

[xguerra]

What does fascinate me about this is that Mike has successfully scripted a proper battery system with up to 3 hours of power.

I would love to see this system applied to something like the Southern Class 419 Motor Luggage Van, with battery power for working off the 3rd rail down at the docks or the East Kent Railway.

[749006]

What does fascinate me about this is that Mike has successfully scripted a proper battery system with up to 3 hours of power.

I would love to see this system applied to something like the Southern Class 419 Motor Luggage Van, with battery power for working off the 3rd rail down at the docks or the East Kent Railway.

I have the Bachmann model and it would be nice to have one in the game

[engineerbj]

It does look (and sound) a right treat, but my real problem with buying the pack that contains it is that you apparently can't re-charge the battery once you've run it down. 2 or 3 hours is all the charge you get, and when it's dead, it's dead, might as well shunt the thing into the sidings like a wagon.

I'd love to have the engine, but I'd like to be able to top-up the battery again so I could use it in my free-roam scenarios on other routes besides the revamped Maerdy. Doesn't have to be prototypical and take 4 or more hours to charge, just a little keystroke to instantly re-charge the battery, or pull the thing up to a fuel pump and let it "refuel" like a diesel engine.

Knowing my luck I'd run out power on the wrong end of the railway before I could swap to a steamer or a diesel to come shunt it out of the way once it's dead....

[xguerra]

It does look (and sound) a right treat, but my real problem with buying the pack that contains it is that you apparently can't re-charge the battery once you've run it down. 2 or 3 hours is all the charge you get, and when it's dead, it's dead, might as well shunt the thing into the sidings like a wagon.

I'd love to have the engine, but I'd like to be able to top-up the battery again so I could use it in my free-roam scenarios on other routes besides the revamped Maerdy. Doesn't have to be prototypical and take 4 or more hours to charge, just a little keystroke to instantly re-charge the battery, or pull the thing up to a fuel pump and let it "refuel" like a diesel engine.

Knowing my luck I'd run out power on the wrong end of the railway before I could swap to a steamer or a diesel to come shunt it out of the way once it's dead....

In real-time it does take several hours to recharge the battery, but it wouldn't be challenging enough if you could source limitless battery power at the will of the keystroke.

It teaches you to drive efficiently, like using slopes and downward gradients to your advantage. Having given the 3B a go I would say there's more than enough time for you to complete the scenarios before the battery dies.

You don't know until you've tried it.

[chrisonline]

That seems a strange reason to worry about buying it! For just $11.24 at the moment! (I guess that must be around £7.49 or £7.99?)

I don't see an issue - you're talking about a SCENARIO, not a day's work. Next scenario - fresh charge. Even an involved Free Roam surely doesn't last all day?

And if that doesn't work for you, maybe some work on scripting could provide that "recharge" with a new keypress?

Chris

[arabianights]

If anything I've come nowhere near depleting the battery yet (including on the workshop scenarios) and I have been trying to do so (trying to set the brakes on fire too) to appreciate the effects, so i really wouldn't worry about it!

[08994]

A very nice model from Meshtools it is too.

Did you get that brake van with the Return to Maerdy pack xguerra? It doesn't show up with mine, unless it's under a different folder stream?

[metrobus]

The 20T brake van was slightly forgotten about so is not present in the pack. As for the battery charge I intended to fitted it with 400 Amp Hour batteries with a 5 hour rating so it would take approximately 5 hours at a continuous 80 amps for the batteries to discharge ( although the time change exponentially at higher currents ), but I made a slightly typo and it ended up 700 Amp hours In other words I wouldn't worry about battery charge as you have plenty ( unless you change the initial charge in the editor ).
regards
Edward

[08994]

Thanks for confirming that Edward.

[engineerbj]

That seems a strange reason to worry about buying it! For just $11.24 at the moment! (I guess that must be around £7.49 or £7.99?)

I don't see an issue - you're talking about a SCENARIO, not a day's work. Next scenario - fresh charge. Even an involved Free Roam surely doesn't last all day?

And if that doesn't work for you, maybe some work on scripting could provide that "recharge" with a new keypress?

Chris

Some of my "involved" Free Roams have lasted for a WEEK of game-time or more, between saves/breaks of course since one does have to go to sleep, eat, work, and the rest at some point, so at some point I would run the batteries on the loco flat, even if I only used it sparingly for things such as shunting. A lot of the routes in my collection are hilly, quite long, or both, which naturally requires a bit more electricity to be used than if I only puttered around a yard or on a short branch.

I might just be a nervous motorman, but I think it would be nice for the EE 3B to have a recharge feature, even if it's just an unofficial mod. I don't really know enough about scripting in TS:2016 to do the mod myself, and the last thing I'd want to do is break something...I'd love to have the loco for pulling works trains and maybe some light branch work, and I like the fact that it has batteries so you don't have to go about putting in overhead wires or a third rail to have an electric locomotive to drive, but all the same, I'd like to have a way to fill up those batteries again once I've run them down, in much the same way I would refill a diesel's tank with fuel oil or a steam locomotive's tender or tanks/bunker with coal and water.

[metrobus]

Charge isn't saved between saves, so if you restart a scenario or reload a save the charge reverts to what it originally was at the start of said scenario or free roam. It's a basic limitation of the scripting.
regards
Edward

[newbouy]

Ok can someone tell me where i went wrong it seems like theres more to driving the EE 3B loco then meets the eye .Went to have a go at the [3B] Overtime scenario and all was going good until i had to take about 10 coal wagons down to Maerdy Coal Southbound from the Maerdy Colliery Sidings to pickup about another 12 wagons.So i set off and got to the brow of the hill just after leaving the colliery and thought ok time to think about slowing this train down so i used the Rheostatic brake which worked ok.But the hill got abit steeper and the amps started to go up so i thought ok no problem i will use the handbrake.In the end i ended up burning the motors out , melting the brake pads and now had a run away train with no way of stopping it .The lads at Maerdy SouthBound sidings were left scatching their heads as i went charging through the yard and continued on down the hill towards Ferndale.Im now thinking maybe i should have pinned down some of the brakes on the coal wagons before i hit the brow of the hill down to Maerdy Southbound sidings .

thanks Newbouy

[engineerbj]

Charge isn't saved between saves, so if you restart a scenario or reload a save the charge reverts to what it originally was at the start of said scenario or free roam. It's a basic limitation of the scripting.
regards
Edward

So if I reload a save, I'll have a full battery again? Awesome, definitely going to be buying the pack then come payday, for that solves any issues I had with it.

Cheers,
Brendan O.