Update Midland Suburban Line

I find that small changes in the brake pressure are achievable with practice. I think the mistake people often make is to apply the brake, then wait for the brake gauge to move before going back to the Lap position. To get a small increase in the pressure you need to apply the brake then immediately go back to lap. If you do that quickly enough, you get small changes in brake pressure. I find it works very well - and is much more interesting to use than a self-lapping brake.

Of course, as Quork suggests, the aim should be to minimise the number of adjustments, but in reality that's very challenging on a route like the Midland Suburban line with lots of gradient changes. If you achieve a nice smooth stop in the right place, it's a success!

What I find problematic with BVE vehicle brakes, is, they all seem to act way to fast in my eyes. They all come very fast; and loosen even faster. Take any BVE train, go into EB, wait till it grips, and go into 0; the train is rolling on the loose after a second or two. That's completely unrealistic. Modern pneumatic brakes with an extra electronic control on a passenger train need about 5 to 10 seconds, depending on the vehicle, from full brake (that's the strongest brake before EB) to loosened brakes; from EB, it's let's say 15 to 30 seconds. And if we take a nice long cargo train, we're talking about minutes here.

I agree some are unrealistic, but not all.

I just tried the BVE TMD class 108 as an example:

Emergency to release - 14 seconds

Full Service to release - 9 seconds

Also, some trains in real life have very fast acting brakes. The BVE UK class 318 takes only 3 seconds from full service to release, but that is quite realistic. Doing the same thing on the real train gives a similar result.

You've got strange trains on the isles