"hurrah! Hurrah!" The troublesome trucks shouted.

Fun fact, the Ffestiniog slate mines - when they were in operation - used to do this. When they did it, they would have everybody sitting on the wagons and then the brakeman - who was at the front - would shout numbers for how many wagon bakes should be applied whilst showing a red flag for all of them. For the horn, the brakeman used a bugle.

Heavier cars will also have A LOT of inertia. So if a turn is to sharp they’ll want to keep going straight and fly off.

For a good gravity line in this game you should choose the smallest engine that can pull the amount of empty cars you want to use up the hill then use the engine's breaks to control the gravity line back down after you fill up at the top. Then you can save on fuel and water cause you are technically only running the train in one way trips.

Straightline Rail Co: Let's build a Solom course up a mountain pass.

I feel like the grav track makes sense if you pull 20+ empties up at once, leave them in a shunt yard and send like 5 down at a time

"Really stupid idea" Every slate-carrying railway in Wales: *angry noises*

I've been waiting on a gravity line for so long they can be some of the most fun and interesting tracks to watch/run. It's almost like a straight line of adrenaline making sure everything is almost perfect and fast.

Without the engine you can actually hear the noise of the track which is mega cool

The 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

17:56 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.

Random suggestion. When taking supplies up to the mines, you take those hopper cars empty with them, sure there will be 'wasted weight' but you can run gravity runs. Assuming you have 2 people, one unloading supplies, while the other loads the hopper cars, then uncouple the caboose give it a shove with the supply loco and you are off on your gravity run while the supply train goes to get more supplies. Though certainly requires 2 people to do so.

Suggestion: an 1 hour long track maintenance episode where you fix all your track (especially adding a y at the logging camp)

Gravity-powered trains are actually quite popular, though you'll mostly find them at amusement parks under the name "roller coaster".

A thing i noticed; the wood flats (when loaded) Bow under weight.

The first railways, long before steam engines, were gravity-powered one way and horse-drawn the other. They were mostly individual cars with a man on a seat on the back, working a wooden break.

Reminds of a old childhood story about a mountain shortline. Track looped around a mountain. Caboose came loose went down one way train went the other way. Engineer kept hearing people say you lost. So he speed up going down the mountain. Until he reached the yard at the bottom and saw his caboose beat him to bottom of the line. They weren't saying he lost a race but had lost his caboose.

I 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.

You could use an engine that's just strong enough to push the 10 Iron cars and then cut the reg and control the brakes from the rear with the engine still attached.

I wanna see the maximum grade a Heisler alone can handle, like give it full regulator, sand and just see what it can do

I 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.

When you said about 4 wheels shaking more than bogeys. Look up the "Class 142 Pacer" a UK staple for 40-50 years and I used to love them! They use to shake, squeal, rock about, and even nod down the track getting nicknamed a "Nodding Donkey". It was definitely noticeable and VERY fun

Fun fact: before cabooses were invented, brakeman (brakemen? Idk) used to stand on top of cars and brake the cars from up there, some freight cars had the brake valves reach up above the car so they could access the brakes easily. One flaw with that was, its dangerous. Especially in winter when it was slippery, or when theres a tunnel, or in an urban environment. At first cabooses were just normal passenger cars, but one time a guy made a hole in the top of a passenger car and overlooked the train by peeking through the hole. After reaching out to an engineer and suggested for there to be a special passenger car with a little cupola up top, the rest is history!

When you “double head” (run two engines at once in the front), you need to have the faster engines as the second one. The reason you kept pulling apart was because the Eureka was too fast for the Mogul. I ran into the same problem but having my slower engine in front fixed it. Didn’t uncouple once. Hope this helps!

Ideally 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!

Gravity systems in the real world like you are trying to replicate here utilize a stationary engine at the top of the hill which pulls the cars up the hill by a long rope/cable. Much like the cable trolleys in San Francisco.

How to gravity train: bring 1-2 iron cars up with each load of planks and beams. Hook them up in the front, and add an extra shunt line to the iron mine to store the iron cars.

The caboose would be the home of like 5 or 6 guys. When running a gravity train, they would each stand on a different car towards the back, and one guy would be in the front coordinating the braking. He would yell back how many brakes he wanted set, and the other guys would alternate which brakes they applied to help mitigate heat.

Shunter at each industry, with shunt lines at each, end game but would work great, especiallywith multilayer. This series brought me to you, and dapper, enjoying it very much so far.

Something to try: put as many switches as possible at the journey endpoints so you can always coast between them without interruptions

You could probably take a few extra cars up when you do supply runs to the mine, then send them down individually if you can figure out a consistent brake percentage. Then you may also be able to take the cars back to the shunt yard when you do cordwood runs, although there would probably be way more cars accumulating at the smelter than you can take back when you do the cordwood runs.

In the uk the featiniog used small 4 wheels slate wagons with breaks and the brake men sat on the loaded cars

Would 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.

"What's up guys, my name is Kan and we're back with more Railroads Online!" that's enough to get my thumbs up

Just a suggestion. Instead of the caboose, just keep the engine just at neutral/coast. That way you you don't have to go back to get it, the brakes would be easier, AND you'd have better camera angles

The entire time on the steep bit before the bridge the runaway theme was playing in my head the whole time.

I found a neat trick to filling iron cars quickly. The iron "ball" that spawns as soon as you start to pour counts as one, so you can simply raise and lower the chute really quickly to fill the car in seconds! Not immersive, but useful for when you're playing alone.

Hey 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. 👍

The 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.

Honestly with the gravity-train stuff, it gives me the same sort of feeling as log-driving.

A similar thing was done on some of the slate railways in Wales

Good 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.

Love the videos keep up the great work. You got me hooked on the game with my wife playing also. Hope to see you and Dapper in more miss adventures lol..

You sure are going STONG with the whole "mention the Y but don't put in the Y". But I love it, because it adds a bit of an obstacle

A gravity track would be most efficient when a third or forth stop is in play. Start at point A, coast to point B, get shunted and coast down the gravity track to point C, etc. By then the main locomotive would be at the end ready to run the cars back to point A.

Yes Kan, been waiting for this! You should definitely try it with others too👍

it may be time to leave a Porter at the industries you plan to gravity run from. as posted below, with 2 people, you can run a supply train up to the source industry with the Coal/Iron empties and once the ore/coal is loaded, send it off on a gravity run while the loco takes the now empty supply cars down to refill them and pick up the Ore cars once they've stopped post unloading. with 3-4 people, one can drive the supply train/load & unload supplies, one can drive the Gravity run, and one for running Betsy to bring the empty ore cars back to where the supply train will pass to reconnect them and bring fuel for the loco's.

12:33 but you can move one of them back up before you fill it, and finish filling with only one.

Yeah, 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.

I love this game and your videos, keep up the good work

Fun fact: The reason it's called a Bobber Caboose is because it's short wheel base and light weight led to it bobbing around a lot. The crews ended up naming it the Bobber Caboose and the name stuck. Some of these cabooses were actually fitted with 2-axeled trucks in place of the single fixed axel, giving them a more normal look and much more comfortable ride.

Ghost riding trains taken to another level

Great job on this video, keep up the good work!

the music when you were flying down the mountain was perfect 👌 had a very “fast & lose” feel to it :)

I’ve been waiting for this kind of video

It’s so nice to always see a new video! Lol it’s currently 5 am in Finland.

I would leave a small locomotives at all the locations, just in case if you ever need it

For a gravity run, you could connect to carts brake to brake side, so you can sit in one place and controll two brakes without jumping over the cars. Or do it with other people.

Didnt see anyone answer your question about a brakeman. Yes in the early days there would be a separate guy running along the top of cars controlling the brakes as each car had to be set indvidually. It was one of the most dangerous jobs in the US at the time. You would have multiple brakeman on a train as they were only to cover so many cars at once. On top of working the brakes, they would be looking for "hot boxes" (axle bearings dangerously overheating) checking for hitchhikers, damaged loads or loads shifting, etc. The role of brakeman has dwindled down as new tech has been introduced, but they still are around to day, just in a different capacity than all those years ago.

I love this series

you could have set the engine to 5% and let it come down by itself and picked it up when it got down to you

Aw yeah, more trains! Hyped for next ep already!

They did that one the narrow gauge slate railways in Wales before they started using steam engines. On the Ffestiniog Railway, for example, they would have a brakeman every 4 or 5 wagons.

The 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.

I agree that the refinery needs an engine shed with a porter or two, once you can afford extras.

That was .............AWESOME!!!!!!

You probably get this alot, but damn those bridges look amazing with the extra foundations

One player delivers the heisler back to get lumber while the iron rolls down with another player.

you 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.

Maybe 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.

fun fact back before early days of steam they ran trains from the slate/coal mines by gravity and were hauled back to the mines by horse but when steam engines came along they could do the trips faster and safer then gravity so they were banned

I think you should make some sheds for a few Bestys and Gutless to shunt the cars around in the empty space inside the loop at the Smelter would be perfect for some sheds and a turn table and side lines maybe. I love this game and seeing new vids dude. You do great work and make great content. Im happy KZfaq recommend your channel and I subbed to your channel, thanks to you I found Dapper`s channel and Kosmo channel. Again thank you for all the hard work you do. Cheers,sorry this is so long.

Nice one ^^ Next you should improve your tracks (remaking the curves and making the doule-tracks, where nesseccary) and invite Kosmo & Dapper to operate trains ^^ It´s about time :D

Should have filled the cars the way Dapper figured out how to. Just a wee bit faster lol

love this series sbest videos ever!!

It would be cool if you did kind of like what you did with Dapper, (Sending trains to eachother.) and while you are at the Iron Mine filling the trains with iron and sending the train down, somebody brings more hoppers while somebody unloads at the smelter. (The Iron cars would be unmanned.)

20:41 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

Have you tried the "Railroad Online Extended" mod? It's a map on the railroad you are on. I set it up as a small page in the corner of the game so I can see what is happening. You can operate locomotives (even sync multiple engines in one train), throw switches, add brakes to cars, teleport to locations, ...... Love your videos

I feel like the only way the gravity track works is kind of your iron mine setup and 2 players. One player rides the cars down one way, and the train goes down the other direction of the track to go pick up more cars as the first unloads.

Feed 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

if 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.

Tip. Did you know you can mega fast fill iron by raising up and down you can see iron ball and it done up and down 10 time it will fill fast

Had 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!

I would love to see a few more track laying episodes. You keep teasing for it, but at some point, you gotta move on. :)

Hello Kan I think that video was very interesting can you do a video on the industry of putting a like a little short engine on sidetracks and all the other different locations that will be an awesome video love the KZfaq channel keep up the good work

Honestly 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.

Epic!

The reason why the bobber caboose has only four wheels Kan is because it was a cheap alternative to a full size caboose on railroads

Protip: *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

I would say at all the industries, right next to where you deposit the goods and or pick them up place down a Y that goes straight into a shed and have a Porter 2 stored at every industry.

Awesome video

You know most gravity lines were short and used a witches system that brings them back up the hill

Neat, so when you going to put that Y in?

14:26 and my only thought is kAN is training for CSX over Cowan mountain. Good thing kAN ain't transporting french fries.

The 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.

Weigt does NOT help against derailing, the Forces that keep the car in the track, and the derailing forces both grow with weight. It is the same illusion that makes ppl believe you do not need to secure heavy loads in a vehicle: they will move along as much as light loads because the resistance against moving around and the forces that move the load around also grow with weight in the same amount.

Hey 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

I have to go to school but ill watch it in 5 hrs

I think if you try this again you can build a switch off track with a small locomotive on it at the end location.

Awsum 😎👍👍👍👍👍