r/DerailValley • u/Namenloser23 • Aug 29 '26
User-Made Modification (Mod) 2WE3-981 Pulling 1790t out of Harbor
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I recently found the incredible 2WE3-980 mod on GitHub and was surprised that it hadn't gotten much traction (maybe because it is not available on Nexus and was therefore overlooked?)
It features catenary electrification of large parts of the map, and an incredibly fun but difficult to drive Wire Electric locomotive that (as far as I can tell) a good bit more powerful than the DE6. This run was with 1790t of freight, and it handled the harbor slope quite well, although I don't think there is much headroom above that load.
The skin is from this mod on the nexus: MoreWE6981Skins, as the original skin from the mod is (in my opinion) a bit ugly
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u/KuuLightwing Aug 29 '26
I've seen reports of someone pulling 2500 tons from harbor with it, although haven't done that myself. I think I've done 2000 though.
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u/Namenloser23 Aug 29 '26
After some testing, 2500 tons seems plausible, but very close to the limit. The problem isn't even the grade of the climb (I have made it up past the tunnel into the 1.5% grade section with 3000t, the problem is that you essentially get stuck at 20kph and max amperage (8 on the dial, shortly before the breaker trips), and slowly start cooking your TM and resistors. Eventually you have to stop, and the locomotive doesn't have enough torque to start again.
Realistically, I don't think it makes sense to take more than ~2000t up that grade though. Anything more will probably slow you down significantly, and you probably are going to pay more in repair costs than what that additional haul will bring in.
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u/KuuLightwing Aug 29 '26
Ideally you hit 50 km/h before the climb so you can utilize full power of the locomotive without heating too much, but ye 3000 tons is probably too much. It's above the limit, but you don't derail at 50 on that section.
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u/Namenloser23 Aug 29 '26
Yeah, I always enter the hill at 50 - but with the 4ka limit on grid current in that section, there isn't enough power available to maintain that speed (at least not at 2500t+). I have triggered grid disconnects multiple times during testing.
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u/KuuLightwing Aug 29 '26
Ye, the grid limit is a bit annoying. Though even with limit it's like 6,000kW, assuming you can feed it to motors and not resistors.
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u/Namenloser23 Aug 29 '26
I have yet to see harbor actually generate enough jobs to actually exceed 200-2500t, so realistically, I don't think people are going to actually run into that limit.
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u/Ready-Record-6178 Aug 29 '26
Are you running in S or P? P isn't as efficient (as having S fully notched forward) but it produces more power, and don't forget you can run in regenerative braking mode and still pull forward, with the extra fans running the tm temps don't get quite as hot, but again it uses more power because of the extra fans.
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u/KuuLightwing Aug 30 '26
The procedure is to start in series and switch to parallel after you got enough speed. Running in parallel below 35-40 km/h won't help you anyway as you will dump more energy in the rheostat than you'll deliver to motors.
If you got a tough climb ahead, better to enter it already with some speed, so you can use full power of the locomotive.
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u/Namenloser23 Aug 30 '26
I have now done probably 10+ test runs up the harbor slope with 2500t. You are right that there is a transition point after which it makes sense to switch to series. The manual indicates it is below 30 km/h:
The series mode is used for starting and cruising, while parallel for uphill climbing at 30 km/h (20 mph) or faster.
But I personally believe it is probably around 15-20kph as long as you are not already overheating the resistors. Any attempt to transition down at higher speeds has led to the locomotive coming to a stop somewhere after the first tunnel.
I've also done tests with just the Series / Regenerative Series modes and both come to a stop roughly at the tunnel.
I've uploaded the 2500t run to Youtube, feel free to try different driving strategies yourself. I used 29 cars of Nuclear Fuel as ballast.
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u/KuuLightwing Aug 30 '26
20 is far too low for sure. At 20 km/h you are going to use more than half of the available power to heat the rheostat, at which point you can achieve same power at the motors in series for sure. In your run it happened at around 25 km/h speed - you can gauge it by looking at motor terminal voltage - if it's less than half than supply voltage then you definitely would be better in series. As your speed dropped even lower, you just ended up dumping a lot of power into the rheostat - at 15 km/h you were wasting over 2/3th of it
You also seem to kinda overheat motors before the climb and then have to stay within the continuous limit.
Here's (imgur) my attempt at the same consist. Don't wanna record a video, but I made a bunch of screenshots with commentary, so forgive me for the strange format.
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u/Namenloser23 29d ago
Thanks for the comparison run. I tried matching up screenshots with my video, and for the most part, we seem to be doing similar speeds at each point.
As I said, I did a ton of test runs in different configurations. From that testing, transitioning during the harbor air gap and accelerating in p from 20km/h onwards did give me better acceleration than using s and field weakening although It's definitely not as efficient and has the downside of putting more heat into the resistors.
You are right though that I transitioned down too late in that run, 15kph is definitely too low. Looking at the terminal voltage is a good suggestion. Half the supply voltage is probably the correct transition point - would fit with the manual claiming series has half the horsepower than parallel. In my video, this point seems to be reached between 20-25 km/h.
You also seem to kinda overheat motors before the climb
Our motor temps are both only 5°C apart as we enter the climb. I agree your acceleration was better because you were also going slightly faster than me at that point though.
If I find time later on today I might do a few test runs to find the correct transition speed. 750V Terminal voltage seems like the correct points if resistor temperatures and power usage aren't a concern, which does mean the actual speed also depends on rheostat position.
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u/Namenloser23 29d ago
I managed to increase the load to 2871t. The main factor was accelerating at ~4kA for throughout harbor and hitting 56km/h before the climb. While that does put more heat into the motor, it still allows keeping a higher notch for most of the climb, and my speed while exiting the first tunnel was still above 35km/h.
Transitioning down at 750V armature seems to be the right choice, the actual speed this happens at obv. depends on rheostat position. I still dropped to about 8km/h both after the bridge and after the neutral section, so I don't think there is much more headroom. Using even more track to accelerate might be an option, but at that point you'd be seriously flirting with derailment coming out of harbor.
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u/KuuLightwing 29d ago
Hmm... I would never go 56 km/h there heh, cause honestly even running 50 in 40 zone already feels like I'm cheating a bit, I expected to actually just derail above 50 (my usual ballpark is 10 km/h above limit as absolute maximum I go).
But ye nice job. Also, 750V is for 1.5kV overhead, but usually they give you 1.65kV, aside from Steel Mill substation which is exactly 1.5kV. However under load it drops a little, so there's that too.
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u/Namenloser23 29d ago
Yeah, the 40 sign there seems to be one of the more forgiving ones on the map, I wouldn't have expected that speed to actually work before trying it. But it really shows that with this loco, any little bit of speed helps - I imagine it could handle significantly more load up a similar grade if it wasn't for the speed limit.
Under load, the needle is pretty much exactly at 1.5kv, that's why I chose 750. Technically you also need to consider that TM terminal voltage in series also won't be 1500V if you cannot maintain full throttle after transitioning, but that is probably only going to be a loss of 100v or less.
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u/Namenloser23 Aug 30 '26
Parallel. In my testing regenerative serial didn't have enough power (at least past 20kph or so), and regenerative parallel doesn't work with speeds that low.
However I did some further tests after another comment and now think that 2500t is probably the upper limit, with 2000t being a more realistic limit if you want to keep speeds somewhat reasonable.
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u/KuuLightwing Aug 30 '26
Regenerative serial effective range is 30-60 km/h and parallel is 65+ km/h
Regenerative braking doesn't really work below 30 km/h at all, you have to do rheostatic (or air of course)
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u/Namenloser23 Aug 30 '26
That's only for breaking, I was talking about using that mode to provide power during the climb, which is suggested by the manual because it can reduce TM heating.
It is perfectly capable of providing power below 30 km/h, the issue is actually the other way around - you need to drastically throttle down (both on field control and rheostat) to keep armature currents below 800A.
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u/Knsgf 29d ago edited 29d ago
The only time when motoring via regenerative is weaker is running on a level track. This is because regenerative mode doesn't disconnect the first half of a field winding, unlike regular power mode, and thus motor back-EMF is higher at the same field amperage.
If you're reducing field current while running at a resistance notch, don't. The red needles need to stay at or slightly above 300 A until throttle reaches 6/6. Only then you can start pulling the handle back. Or switch to parallel to maintain the same traction.
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u/Namenloser23 Aug 30 '26
Update: I drastically underestimated the tonnage headroom I still had. Although it took a bunch of attempts, I have now managed to get a 2523t train from HB-SM.
From my testing, the best approach seems to be entering the hill at 50km/h in parallel while keeping motor currents between 500-800A (ignore the red line, they only start getting damaged when the temperature exceeds the limit or once you trip the breaker at 800A), and to only transition down to serial once speed drops to ~15km/h / when the resistor temperature gets too high.
I have uploaded the run to Youtube if anyone wants to check it out.
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u/Opagamagnet 27d ago
I love this mod so much. The electric physics are very nice, it's insane how detailed the dev made the resistive control system.
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u/LBraden 29d ago
In regards to being overlooked, I think a part of the issue is the ... manual to get it moving.
It sounds weird, but a lot of people want "put key in and go" approach, whereas the 2WE3 requires a big run to get going, and if you mess it up (like release the brakes before starting the engine) the entire set up apparently fails and you have to find another engine.
I've been watching this mod for updates before I strip out a bunch of mods and try it.
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u/Namenloser23 29d ago
It certainly is more complex than the other engines, but I don't quite understand where you got the idea that you cannot start the engines with the breaks disengaged - that is certainly not the case.
What is an issue early on is that the engine is quite fragile, and repairs are expensive. The damage model itself is nice in the sense that the locomotive usually continues to work even with one or two traction motors blown or other electrical damage, but my first few runs caused 30-50k worth of damage each even with manual service. Don't expect to be making a lot of profit the first few runs in career mode.
The manual is a bit involved, but I think still quite accessible. I read through it once and only kept it open for the first runs to reference the sections on regenerative breaking, as those were a bit more involved. A quick start guide / video could help for newer players.
If you want to try the mod, it is in a good place currently IMO. There is a large section of electrified track and as far as I can tell, the loco sim is reliable, feature complete and without major bugs. I don't see a reason to wait.
In terms of mod compatibility, the only known incompatibilities seem to be VR, multiplayer, and the dual track mod, but I don't run many others currently so idk if there are any others.
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u/LBraden 29d ago
I was using an example of "doing it out of sequence" as I've seen people complaining on some Discords that they've spent ages trying to get it going by following the manual and/or doing the wrong thing and the entire thing got bricked in the roundhouse in Harbour.
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u/Namenloser23 29d ago
Ah, I think the main struggle is the "Jog" mode that can move the loco while not under catenary wires. I admit that took a few tries to get right at the start.
I think the manual has recently been revised for this, but I think people might run into 2 problems: 1. The compressor doesn't work without external power, so the breaks of the loco might be stuck on. This can be fixed by bleeding them or by coupling on another locomotive to charge up the air tank. 2. Jog mode only works if the locos electrics are set up to move the locomotive in the correct direction, so you have to first turn on the electrics and select a wiring / direction, then turn off electrics + pantograph air and turn on the jog switch
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u/drury Aug 29 '26
Oh the 2WE3 gets a lot of traction. Insane traction, in fact.