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A new design of portable milk flow simulator allows the recording of vacuum in the claw, at the end of an artificial teat, in the pulsation chamber and in the milk pipeline in commercial milking parlors. Measurement vacuum sensors were mounted in the claw, in one artificial teat, in the pulsation chamber and in the milk pipeline. Simultaneous measurements of vacuum were possible at the four locations and both analogue and digital outputs were available on the laptop computer attached to the signal conditioning unit linked to the vacuum transducers. The simulator was used in a milking parlor to evaluate the effect of altering the internal bore of the long milk tube in a mid-level milking plant. Increasing the internal diameter of the long milk tube (LMT) from 13.5 mm to 16 mm improved the mean vacuum at the teat end during the B-phase of pulsation (TVMEANB) with both alternate and simultaneous pulsation particularly at high water flow rates. The TVMEANB was higher with simultaneous than with alternate pulsation. At a flow of 8 L/min the vacuum loss at the teat end during simulated milk flow in a mid-level milking was approximately 7 kPa with simultaneous pulsation compared with 14.3 kPa with alternate pulsation.