RAILROADS Online! Locomotive Buyer Guide

Locomotive Startup Guide

Buying your first big locomotive is an exciting task, but getting it running has its quirks. Here's a quick checklist to help you get it running!

Step 1, Check for an Air brake compressor. Most of the large locomotives are equipped with Air brakes, thus you'll have to generate air. This can be done with a hand valve located somewhere in the cab. For example, on the Eureka 4-4-0 this valve is located to the right of the unused dial. Turn this to 100% and you will have brakes.

Step 2, Attach the tender. Should your locomotive have a tender, you need to add a link to the tender, back up and pin into the locomotive. You should see a unique looking draw bar instead of the normal coupler link. DO NOT USE A LINK OFF OF THE LOCOMOTIVE.

Step 3, Add Water. Locomotives come with just enough water to get fired up typically, so get to a water tower ASAP and give your new baby a drink.

Hopefully that helps you get your new locomotive up and running.

Porters

These are your starter locomotives and the smallest of the bunch. They have low water and fuel reserves, and a mechanical brake that is less strong than air brakes found on other locomotives. As such, they should be used as short distance, small to mid sized trains. Currently these locomotives can punch above their weight, but the devs have confirmed these will be nerfed in the future.

Biggest advantages- Able to handle extremely tight corners and poor trackwork.

Biggest disadvantages- Will be nerfed, wobbles a lot at speed, poor brakes.

Picture Courtesy of TrainMann, Leader of the Porter Cult.

Eureka 4-4-0

This is the next logical step for your railroad. The Eureka is a locomotive set up for medium length, mostly flat routes, with a medium sized fuel and water capacity and air brakes. Best used as a "Local" locomotive on routes where stopping, starting, and shunting is required due to its forgiving nature and large cab. Best used on routes with less than a 2% grade.

Biggest Advantages- Cheap, Large cab, air brakes, looks nice, no known bugs

Biggest Disadvantages- Not as powerful as some of the other big locos, poor grade performance.

Mogul 2-6-0

The Cookie is the best all-round locomotive in the game with large fuel capacity, loads of power, air brakes, and very good tractive-effort. However, it is pricey, and the cab is somewhat awkward to use at first. Also this is not an engine you can run tender first easily, meaning ideally you'll want locomotive turning facilities.

Biggest Advantages- Huge fuel capacity, powerful, air brakes.

Biggest Disadvantages- Cab is cramped and awkward. Poor visibility

Class 70 2-8-0

This locomotive is the largest and most powerful of the traditional steam locomotives at launch, and best used for long haul, low speed drag freight trains or as a pusher for mountain passes. However, beware this locomotive DOES NOT HAVE BRAKES, therefore you will have to learn how to use handbrakes on the tender and how to Johnson stop. Cab is similar to the Mogul, as is viability.

Biggest Advantages- largest fuel capacity, Most powerful of class, no known bugs.

Biggest Disadvantages- Cab is cramped and awkward, Poor visibility, no brakes.

Heisler

Currently the most bugged locomotive in the game, requiring less than 60% throttle at all times to be used. Should you accidentally go past that limit, you will have to stop the train and restart it, as the wheels will spin indefinitely otherwise. However, even with this bug, the Heisler is one of the most powerful locomotives in the game, along with the climax and is much, much faster. However, like both geared locomotives, the fuel stores are low, in this case somewhere between the Eureka and Mogul.

Biggest Advantages- Powerful and Fast, enormous cab, decent viability.

Biggest Disadvantages- Bugged so you can't use full throttle, pricey.

Climax

The most powerful locomotive in the game, the Climax will break couplers long before you need a helper locomotive. It is best used on routes with massive grades, or as switching locomotives as you can outrun it on foot at full throttle. Yes, it is that slow.

Biggest Advantages- Most Powerful Locomotive in game, decent viability.

Biggest Disadvantages- Slower than being beaten to death with a pillow, pricey.

Stopping And Slowing Trains

I've had a few questions on the methods of stopping trains in Railroads Online, so I figured I would add this section. Fundamentally there is 3 methods of braking in the game.

-Mechanical brakes, Seen on the Porters, and all rolling stock usually operated by a wheel or a lever.

-Air Brakes, Seen on most of the large locomotive and located in the cab.

-Johnson Stop, Most useful on the 2-8-0, but usable on every non geared locomotive.

Mechanical brakes are pretty self explanatory, you turn a wheel or pull a lever and it presses a piece of wood or metal against the wheel to slow the train. In the days before air brakes, brakemen would have to jump from car to car and manually apply the brakes on each car.

Air Brakes automated that process with a lever in the cab. Modern trains have 2 separate systems, one for the locomotive, and one for the rest of the train. These old trains typically have one or the other. In the case of all the large locomotives baring the 2-8-0, they have air brakes for the locomotive. The 2-8-0 features air brakes for air fitted freight cars which are not in the game currently. Thus the 2-8-0 relies on the "Johnson stop" to stop currently.

The Johnson stop is using the Johnson Bar (also known as the reverser or cut off) to slow and stop the train.

How to do it...

Throttle to 0%

Reverser to the opposite direction of travel

Full throttle to spin the wheels and slow the train.

You can see one in action in real life in the film the Great Locomotive Chase here...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W8J-3fvT8Dw&ab_channel=RavennaRailfan4070

This was a very common way of stopping short trains quickly before the invention of air brakes, however it was dangerous as it could cause derailments, cylinder explosions or damage, and or excessive wear to the wheels and track. Thus for longer trains, brakeman manually setting handbrakes while the train was in motion was considered the "better way" of stopping a train.

The coolest part about Railroads online is you can do both. If you play solo you can Johnson stop, and if you play in multi-player, you can have someone act as a brakeman.

(Note, it is not possible to use a Johnson stop on a geared locomotive. You would just tear up the gearing and drive-line or detonate the cylinders like a bomb, whichever link was weaker. So don't do that...)

The Devs have also mentioned wanting to add the "Water brake", which essentially is dumping water into the cylinders with the ♥♥♥♥♥ open to slow the train. However, this was only used on certain locomotives, and was seldom used outside of extreme emergency situations. Water doesn't compress, so in doing this, you would likely destroy the cylinders on the locomotive when moving at any serous speed.

Rumor Mill

The Devs have made a real hash of explaining what is coming to the game on the Discord, So I've made this section to report on whatever images they give us of about Locomotives and rolling stock in Development. Keep in mind, most of the dev team part time, and this is not a guarantee these models will show up in the game. All of this pictures where at one time publicly available on the discord...

0-6-0 Porter and Caboose. This pint sized steamer should fill a role between the 4-4-0 Eureka and 2-6-0 Mogul. Featuring a rather adorable profile, tender for fuel storage, and (I'm assuming) decent tractive effort given the size of the boiler should make it a competitive branch Line locomotive

Better views of the Bobber caboose and it's customization. These were common fixtures on american railroads, giving the brakeman a place to ride, and carrying most of the gear necessary for minor repairs on route.

This selection of 4 wheel freight cars where commonly found on industry based railroads, such as those serving quarries. These will perfect for the current 0-4-0 and 0-4-2 porters, and should handle ridiculously sharp curves.

This 0-6-0 tank engine is another "Larger Porter" and should be a pretty decent fit between the 0-4-2 porter and the 4-4-0 Eureka.

This 2-6-0 is likely Glenbrook, a larger sister locomotive to Eureka. This will be absolute beauty when it comes out.

Picture courtesy of Resident Whistle Blower, Jai

(Picture MIA)

There was a picture pre-launch of a 99% completed Cookie 2-8-0 which has mysteriously gone missing. However, I had it all but confirmed by a dev my eyes did not deceive me. This will likely be one of the strongest all round locomotives in the game depending on when or if it is released.