A baling system (10) acts at shut-down to automatically pre-position a plunger (34) so that it is just past a rear-dead-center position when the baler is restarted, thereby minimizing the load on a power take-off (24) during the next restart. In particular, when the power take-off (24) is deactivated, a control unit automatically brakes the power take-off so that the plunger (34) stops in the desired position. Alternatively, the baling system acts at restart-up to automatically repeatedly activate and deactivate the power take-off in order to accelerate the plunger to a predetermined minimum operating speed before activating the power take-off for continuous operation, thereby maximizing a flywheel's momentum during the restart.
