Hey everyone and welcome back to more Railroads Online! Today we are going to try something a bit silly, driving a gravity powered train! The run from the iron mine down to the smelter is mostly downhill and since we have a lot of iron to deliver I figured it would be neat to try driving nothing but a caboose all the way to the smelter!
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vitmoudry
24.04.202317:56 Yes, they did! On the narrow gauge lines in Wales, they would have like 100 tiny slate wagons, and run them down the hill, and there would be a person sitting on the slate truck manning the brakes. It's where the phrase "slate arse" came from. Check out the Full Steam Ahead documentary on Absolute History, it's really cool.
Snypar Australis
22.04.2023you could use a smaller engine to just return the empty cars to the mine.
for example, have 10 empty iron ore cars with a Mogul or something just big enough to pull the empties up the hill, and then let them roll back down.
Kacper Szudera
22.04.2023kAN pls do max iron ore load of 29 carts
Chemie Ingenieur
22.04.2023Hey kAN, gravity tracks are easy made in RO. I have them a lot on my map. Some testing, and I figured out, that 1.5% grades are the sweet spot. Going down is just perfect, just let it coast, no brakes, no engine. Its exactly that steep to keep the momentum without overspeeding and falling of the track. AND reverse the grade makes long heavyweight trains with one C70 possible. 24 Cars with rails and beams to the coal mine is perfect, 30 is possible. 👍
David Mitchell
22.04.2023Ironically they actually did that back in the day
Jake Darling
22.04.2023The slate mines in Wales were gravity lines and yes people did ride the trucks down, typically at least one per wagon to control the brakes.
indranila Kriestiana
22.04.2023Protip: put caboose at the back so you can see more than just a hopper
And also the caboose shake or wobbles bore because its bobber caboose
Bobs and wobble is same back then i think
indranila Kriestiana
22.04.202320:41 thats the porpoise in american railroad but in british railways they are called brake vans and used to brake the whole train altough its rare now
Merijn
22.04.2023Kan maybe it is smart to put the Heisler at the steep hill. So when you have a heavy load you grab the Heisler and for the flat sections use a other engine
Wilks' Trains
22.04.2023I want to do this myself now! Btw I need all of your opinions, do I buy a bobber caboose in HO scale and try make a Straightline Rail Co. caboose?
TheCrunchifiedOne
22.04.2023"What's up guys, my name is Kan and we're back with more Railroads Online!"
that's enough to get my thumbs up
Jack Sparrow
21.04.2023is it just me or were the car brakes glowing red at the end of the video, visible from around 23:30
Lucas Fischer
21.04.2023what difficulty do you play at?
SwordlordRoy
21.04.2023Had Funiculi Funicula (a song about the first Funicular (a form of gravity railroad where a descending car will pull up an ascending car) up Mount Vesuvius) pop into my head while watching this…
Jamme, jamme 'ncoppa, jamme jà,
Jamme, jamme 'ncoppa, jamme jà,
funiculì, funiculà, funiculì, funiculà,
'ncoppa, jamme jà, funiculì, funiculà!
Cyar Skirata
21.04.2023I feel like the practical use of a gravity track would be in a really productive multiplayer session, speeding up the whole process by allowing two locomotives to efficiently make three runs.
One engine takes the materials to the top of the hill, with the empty gravity train on the back. It then helps fill up the gravity train, lets it go, and while one player manages the gravity train, the other takes the locomotive and its empties back down to pick up another load.
When the gravity train reaches its destination and is unloaded, the empties are hooked on the back of the train taking the next cargo back out. That route meets the up-route, and the empty gravity cars are left there for the up-train to pick up when it passes with more materials.
While the gravity train is running down, and being picked up by the train with the end product, the materials train is free to go back and pick up its next load.
And while the materials train is hauling the gravity train back up and when the gravity train is running down, the end product train is free to finish its delivery and return for its next load.
MaTiX
21.04.2023What is the point of this? Why would you want to have a Heisler alone on top of a mountain, you will always be better off bringing the engine with you to get the cars away from the smelter and back up. Otherwise you would have to WALK back up the mountain and get the engine you literally just unhooked atop the mountain. Confused Viewer Noises
BlackOak
21.04.2023I laughed that the devs were faster to fix that bug than Kan has been to fix his kinked track, lol
Mohammad Nazri Abd Samad
21.04.2023Gravity-powered trains are actually quite popular, though you'll mostly find them at amusement parks under the name "roller coaster".
MrFreddy312
21.04.2023Hey Kan can you maybe upload your savegame so people can play on your world too
Jordan Anderson
21.04.2023The caboose is meant for keeping the couplings taught over gradients. Applying the brakes on the caboose reduces snatching and crashing of the cars as they transition from one grade to another. Excessive snatching would damage the couplers
Frank Rossdeutscher
21.04.2023I would love to see a few more track laying episodes. You keep teasing for it, but at some point, you gotta move on. 🙂
xX_Spook_Boi_Xx
18.04.2023fun fact: its called a bobber caboose because it shook like a bobber in the water and rode real rough
Captain Snekk
18.04.2023When you are at 400k or 500k subs can we get da
FACECAMMM
River Takeshita
18.04.2023Suggestion: an 1 hour long track maintenance episode where you fix all your track (especially adding a y at the logging camp)
EuanEchidhog
18.04.2023Yeah, as most people say, there is a narrow gauge gravity train in Wales (Ffestiniog) which has wagons filled with slate and are sent down the hill with a few brake man to help slow it down at points.
While it is cool to see you giving it a go, it is rather impractical to do in your game, especially when having a lot of steam locos on your railway, thus there being no reason to rely on gravity to send iron to the Smelter's when having more control with a steam loco.
TexasRailfan21
18.04.2023Ffestiniog railway is a 2 ft gauge railway that had slate mines at the top of their hill double ended Fairlie type Steam locomotives would pull the empty cars uphill then by gravity the loaded slate cars would roll downhill to the port at Ffestiniog
kolowski13
18.04.2023Ideally you would want two of the cars to have their brake controls next to each, (one car flipped around compared to the rest) so that you have two cars worth of brakes in easy reach.
Really great video!
doodle story
18.04.2023I think if you try this again you can build a switch off track with a small locomotive on it at the end location.
Linux-Power-User
18.04.2023Is the grass render distance this poor or are the graphics lowered?
Weird 101
18.04.2023I have a great idea, make a loop of track going from the iron mine to the smelter, one going up and the other down at the same grade, Fill the entire thing with hoppers and have them back to back so its also a loop. Then fill one side, the weight of it will pull the lighter side up and then fill them up as they go by. At the smelter a guy will unload the cars as they come and become lighter. This way you will get 100% of the ore from the iron mine to the smelter within mabye an hour or two.
Sapioit
18.04.2023Id' like to see a train go up on a 45 degrees angle, then go down a different route as a gravity train (with the locomotive turned off, but still attached).
Jay Von Sutphen
17.04.2023Good job. I have been something similar with Betsy and the logging camp. With the realistic physics Betsy could pull the empties up to the logging camp, but her brakes were not enough to stop the train at the sawmill. I used the last car breaks to control the speed and bring the train to a stop. Until the economy rebalance I did the same with cordwood. The cordwood demand is quadruple what it used to be so longer trains ended my Betsy logging era.
Alex Pym
17.04.2023Yes Kan, been waiting for this!
You should definitely try it with others too👍
Arthur Brunner
17.04.2023Lol rollercoasters are gravity tracks
xXVintersorgXx
17.04.2023Feed the gravity line into a siding and have a second person running it on the flat track. Then you can run 5 empty cars up with a load for the iron works. Then have the second person unload the iron and bring the empty cars to the saw mill. You don't need a gear train on flat track
Michał Turyński
17.04.2023The Y is like a polititians promise. Everyone heard about it, everyone would love to see it come true but it's not real and will never come to be. It's a myth, a legend. At this point mothers tell beautiful fairy tales about how kAN builds a Y at sawmill and trains can travel through smoothly.
Slick Rick
17.04.2023One of the biggest freight terminals in germany (in hamburg) is a rolling hill
It aint a bad idea but bad execution if at all
Medi ;D
17.04.2023Maybe build a wood-sawmill gravity run where you have a long train with unlinked cars, which you fill with wood and when the next is loaded it pushed the already loaded car on the gravity run to the sawmill. At the sawmill a second player will unload it and the rest of the momentum is used to roll it on a yard and the loco comes with the last car to the sawmill where it gets unloaded and linked with the other cars to drive back to the woodsupply. Where you can start the procedure again.
Agent West
17.04.2023Would be great to see a gravity loop where weight of the cargo is what brings loaded cars down pushing empties up in the process. Should be a continuous thing with two people clicking load/unload. Maybe run between the lumber camp and freight depot? Won't bring much $, but is close-ish together and would not require any cargo brought there to keep going.
EwingTaiwan
17.04.2023Are those brakes glowing from heat? If so, it would be super cool if the glowing actually corresponds to the actual braking pads. Now it seems like they're just glowing if going downhill no matter what.
BEdmonson85
17.04.2023Next time you guys do another multiplayer run, complain about the UI issues… maybe the devs will get that fixed by the next video too… >_<
StandardDifferent
15.04.2023The earliest railways predate steam trains, you would take empty cars up with donkeys and then take the train down with gravity, and people braking on quite a few of the cars. I presume the donkeys took a road down.
Converse King
15.04.2023Honestly you’d have two or three people running an operation like this. you would have a shunting engine at the top and your heisler at the bottom and double tracks. you’d push empties and product to the top on track then head back down on track b. the shunter loads and positions the cars at the top and rides the cars back down.
BotherRed
15.04.2023I still think you need to just do a whole EP decated to fixing your track, putting in the Y, etc. Do that, and your life will just become easier
UnitOfE
15.04.2023Hey kAN, I'm from the Netherlands and I know of multiple gravity shuntyards down here.
Though we have no automatic breaking in RRO, it might be great to try it. I know I'm going to at some point!
Maybe watch a video about Kijfhoek (if you don't mind dutch commentary) for inspiration
Valderon
15.04.2023I'm still super confused what the point of this is… What good is using an engine to get all the cars up there just to leave the engine at the top? You would need another engine to get the cars back up again. Or if you don't want to build a new engine every trip, you would just have to bring the engine down anyway. So why not just leave it attached to the cars? It's more work just to do more work afterwards. I see zero purpose of this scenario. If it is meant just as a challenge to see if you could do it then I can understand that, but as a regular thing it has to be the dumbest concept I've ever heard of.
Jesse Van Doren jr.
15.04.2023You probably get this alot, but damn those bridges look amazing with the extra foundations
mike dutdut
15.04.2023How many empty cars will you be able to pull to the top?
I imagine 3-4 times as many as you could loaded at least. So you drag 30-40 up and ride down in sets of 10 bringing the engine with the last set.
Larger sets with extra brakemen.
PhoenixShark
15.04.2023The best way that a gravity powered train like this would work would be to have multiple people and bring up literally as many empty cars as the one locomotive can pull, then you have a set of cars for each set of people to go down the hill, the last person brings a set of cars and the locomotive down the hill with them and the whole thing can happen again.
Only problem is that NOBODY can make a mistake in judging the hill and speeds or else that makes a mess for everyone else after them.
William Kyle
15.04.2023if you want to do this on the regular you should consider raising the tracks at the drop off point on the entry side and have it gradually slope down past it so you can just break to a full stop to empty then release the breaks to roll forward and stop again using the same breaks.