simonjackson1964

I'm in the process of transposing it into my work-in-progress layout

Hi BahnLand Thanks. I had a feeling that might be the case, that's the sign I used on my test track (just for completeness). Vielen Dank. Ich hatte das Gefühl, dass das der Fall sein könnte, das ist das Zeichen, das ich auf meiner Teststrecke verwendet habe (nur der Vollständigkeit halber).

Okaaaaaay........ B18BF551-1677-4277-AE1B-6019275E4E4E Try that! As far as I can tell it works perfectly 99% of the time, and the only glitch is when a small car is waiting to turn left into the side road, sometimes the car behind will "pass through" it, and this is because I don't know exactly where to put the stop contacts, so that they are on the correct route, but far enough back to stp the shortest vehicle while part of it is still on the joint route. Does Germany have these road signs? I can't find them in the catalogue. Versuch das! Soweit ich das beurteilen kann, funktioniert es zu 99% perfekt, und der einzige Fehler ist, wenn ein kleines Auto darauf wartet, nach links in die Seitenstraße abzubiegen, manchmal "passiert" das hintere Auto durch, und das liegt daran, dass ich nicht genau wissen, wo die Haltekontakte angebracht werden sollen, damit sie auf der richtigen Route sind, aber weit genug zurück, um das kürzeste Fahrzeug anzuhalten, während ein Teil davon noch auf der gemeinsamen Route ist. Hat Deutschland diese Verkehrszeichen? Ich finde sie nicht im Katalog.

That works, but is actually just traffic lights without the lights. The problem with "trimming " the EV code is that I might "trim" something important!

I've tried, honestly. But it gets too complicated for words with a counter for each route and conditions that have multiple "or" statements. Personally I'd rather concentrate on the railways and just leave the roads empty!

Seriously, the counters are not really the problem. Just maker sure that there are more operations subtracting than adding, and after every subtraction set it to if it's negative. This is a red herring , distracting everyone from the real issue: Why do cars end up between tractor and trailer? And is there any way of stopping this from happening?

Actually no. This is something I've been wrestling with since V4. A vehicle enters the the junction, and hits the track contact, causing +1 to the count. Unless I go the whole hog and count each track contact separately, checking which route each vehicle is on and decide whether or not to slow or stop it on that basis, I have no way of saying that this vehicle is turning left therefore must wait for oncoming traffic. The only solution that doesn't require a "degree in astrophysics", is to say that traffic entering the junction from the straight routes adds 1 to the count when entering and subtracts 1 when leaving. Then to at least try and prevent the mess on the uncontrolled junction where cars jump out on top of each other, I say that when the count is > 0 the contact on the side road is set to decelerate to 0 and when it is 0 (or less) it will accelerate to 30. The problem here s that when a vehicle enters the track contact on the side road, if this sets the count up by 1, the vehicle will always stop. Unless it sets the count when leaving the contact, but for a longer vehicle that is too late. I would appreciate constructive advice on how to solve this conundrum. In the mean time I will have a go at "Total Junction Management" to see if it can be made to work, involving a separate counter for every possible direction a vehicle can turn, which may even result in realistic right turns that don't have trucks passing through each other.

B18BF551-1677-4277-AE1B-6019275E4E4E There. It's actually much more elegant, code wise, removes that ugly nested condition. And while it removes the tail flick when driving by, which was the annoying but inconsequential one, it doesn't remove any of the other issues. Including the strange "failure to subtract 1" that seems to happen randomly. Fortunately this has a built in fix in that vehicles entering the junction from the side road don't add to the counter, but do subtract, and if the count goes below zero it is set back to zero. But a vehicle stopped permanently at the stop sign because of this, thus causing the side road to fill, will precipitate the"mega-tail-flick" problem when it starts moving again, This can be created artificially by stopping a vehicle in the side road, then starting it up once the traffic has backed up behind it in both directions

Thanks Guys. I have to say that road vehicles are a particular bugbear of mine. I'll make the random route assignment more sophisticated, so it only assigns routes that are reachable from the present location and re-upload. Cheers Simon

Hi. B18BF551-1677-4277-AE1B-6019275E4E4E That is my test track, uploaded as a draft so it doesn't clutter the catalogue. Dies ist mein Testtrack, den ich als Entwurf hochgeladen habe, damit er den Katalog nicht überfüllt. There's one junction that is controlled by counting vehicles in and out, and one junction that is uncontrolled. What I want to know is, is there a way of making the vehicles behave in a more realistic manner when turning left into or out of a junction? I can make them stop at the stop line until the junction is clear, but the longer vehicles are never clear of the junction before the next vehicle arrives at it. All the vehicles have auto-decelerate and auto-accelerate set, and yet some times for some reason a vehicle will crash into the back of a slower one and push it. Es gibt eine Kreuzung, die durch Zählen der ein- und ausfahrenden Fahrzeuge kontrolliert wird, und eine Kreuzung, die nicht kontrolliert wird. Was ich wissen möchte, ist, gibt es eine Möglichkeit, das Verhalten der Fahrzeuge beim Linksabbiegen in oder aus einer Kreuzung realistischer zu gestalten? Ich kann sie an der Haltelinie anhalten lassen, bis die Kreuzung frei ist, aber die längeren Fahrzeuge haben die Kreuzung nie verlassen, bevor das nächste Fahrzeug dort ankommt. Alle Fahrzeuge haben eine automatische Verzögerungs- und Beschleunigungseinstellung, und dennoch prallt manchmal aus irgendeinem Grund ein Fahrzeug gegen das Heck eines langsameren und schiebt es. And finally (and most annoying of all) especially on the uncontrolled junction, a car will occasionally insert itself between a tractor and trailer. This is the reason I no longer bother with articulated vehicles or trailers on my layouts. Und schließlich (und am ärgerlichsten), besonders an der unkontrollierten Kreuzung, schiebt sich gelegentlich ein Auto zwischen Traktor und Anhänger. Aus diesem Grund habe ich auf meinen Anlagen keine Sattelzüge oder Anhänger mehr. I've found that road vehicles are almost more trouble than they are worth to include, as they require constant micromanaging to keep them moving, which takes away the joy of running the trains. Ich habe festgestellt, dass Straßenfahrzeuge fast mehr Ärger bereiten, als es wert ist, absorbiert zu werden, da sie ein ständiges Mikromanagement erfordern, um sie in Bewegung zu halten, was die Freude am Fahren der Züge beeinträchtigt. The random target assignment works so far as it needs to and is just a way of making sure that things happen. Die zufällige Zielzuweisung funktioniert so weit wie nötig und ist nur eine Möglichkeit, dafür zu sorgen, dass Dinge passieren [edit to add] I also forgot the random "Tail Flick". This occurs when a vehicle goes over a junction that for some reason isn't set correctly and the back of the vehicle flicks over to the other route. Normally just annoying to look at, if there are a number of vehicles queueing up at the junction it can result in some very unrealistic "flicking" of the entire queue of cars, and I have seen this result in vehicles being on the wrong side of the road and heading backwards towards their target! Ich habe auch das zufällige "Schwanzschnippen" vergessen. Dies tritt auf, wenn ein Fahrzeug eine Kreuzung passiert, die aus irgendeinem Grund nicht korrekt eingerichtet ist, und das Heck des Fahrzeugs auf die andere Route wechselt. Normalerweise nur ärgerlich anzusehen, wenn sich eine Reihe von Fahrzeugen an der Kreuzung anstellt, kann dies zu einem sehr unrealistischen "Schwanzschnippen" der gesamten Fahrzeugreihe führen, und ich habe gesehen, dass dies dazu führt, dass Fahrzeuge auf der falschen Seite der Kreuzung stehen Straße und rückwärts zum Ziel!

I was looking for those too. I ended up using the "must go straight" sign instead

Using routes at V7 this happens automatically, I think. No time to check right now as I'm on my lunch break.

This is interesting. Thanks George for asking the question and thanks Brummi for the definitive answer. Thinking about the scenario George poses: A train passes a KS type signal that is yellow (69 type yellow signals mean something different, and as I learned a while ago, there would be an approach or distant signal between the two block signals). The driver slows to 25mph/40kph (which I still think is incredibly slow) to pass the signal. 500m further on he comes in sight of the red signal. And as he approaches it, so it changes. But it's not going to go green, except in two possible circumstances: The signal is at the start of a lower traffic area and is only two aspect. The train in front has taken a different route or has sped up and the signal was already yellow. Normally the signal would go from red to yellow as the train in front moved out of that block. So the train following would not accelerate to line speed anyway.. The thing I noticed about Brummi's answer is that while on the railways the rules are enforced by the ATPS, they are actually the same as on the roads: You should slow down as you approach a speed limit sign that is lower, and not accelerate until you reach a speed limit sign that is higher. The fact that most drivers do the opposite is because there is no automated speed control for cars - at least, not one that will enforce speed limits. .... Yet...! Simon

Track contacts are great! You can use the same event in multiple places, if you use track contacts. Put the same keyword on each contact, and for this event, a number Variable that holds the speed to set to. Then you use the Vehicle leaves a contact with keyword option. In the set Vehicle speed action specify an extended variable as the speed, with the object set to trigger track contact and the variable as the one holding the speed. I'm on my phone right now and can't show examples, but that means you can have fun working it out, right? If you get stuck just ask. Your homework is towork out how to set a different speed for each different loco! ;-D

It's also a fun way to learn German... Ha ha!

Not so far as I'm aware, but mostly it's pretty intuitive. Most objects can have events connected to them, the most common being vehicles and track contacts. You can create an event in the event management menu or from the object it relates to. (Setting a keyword on a group of similar objects means they can all trigger the same event). Yu can select conditions and actions for what each event does from the drop-down menus. I think the easiest way to learn it is to create a "test track" layout and just play with different events. There are some things you can't do, unfortunately, but using a "manually triggered event" can get you around a lot of obstacles too. If you come across something you don't understand there are plenty of people willing to help!

Is there a reason why there is no "Middle-Right-End" / "Mitte-Rechts-Ende" variant on the catenary? It seems odd that it was omitted from the set.

Heh, no sweat, my friend. As long as one of us answers, that's what matters.

If you want to use an actual track section rather than a track contact, then use the event "When a train/vehicle enters a track/street" or "When a train/vehicle leaves a track/street". ........................Rats, beaten by a nose!

Got it! Thank you so much! It helps if you use the right gantry! Ha ha! Habe es! Ich danke dir sehr! Es hilft, wenn Sie das richtige Portal verwenden! Ha ha!

No, not talking about the signal basket, I'm talking about the little white rectangle that I drew an orange ring around. Nein, ich spreche nicht vom Signalkorb, ich spreche von dem kleinen weißen Rechteck, um das ich einen orangefarbenen Ring gezogen habe.

Hi all. It seems that along with the new KS signal system, the Bundesbahn has perfected the power of levitation? On the KS signal variations for boom hanging, there is a white rectangle that is floating some distance below and in front of the signal. On the type 69 signals this is tucked up alongside the signal inside the cage, which makes sense. Is there an actual reason why this board is where it is, or did the person making the signal variation simply forget to move it? Hallo zusammen. Es scheint, dass die Bundesbahn zusammen mit dem neuen KS-Signalsystem die Kraft der Levitation perfektioniert hat? Bei den KS-Signalvariationen zum auslegerhängen schwebt ein weißes Rechteck in einigem Abstand unter und vor dem Signal. Bei den Signalen vom Typ 69 ist dies neben dem Signal im Käfig verstaut, was Sinn macht. Gibt es einen tatsächlichen Grund, warum diese Tafel dort ist, wo sie ist, oder hat die Person, die die Signalvariation vorgenommen hat, einfach vergessen, sie zu verschieben?

@BahnLand Thanks, that's brilliant. I love the way the points have the correct shadow showing where the the blades are open. I think I shall be using these from now on! It's clear that a lot of work went into the making of them, and I also like that they re-scale themselves. so it doesn't matter if I'm using Z or 1 Guage.

Hi all. Since seeing a previous question regarding guard rails on turnouts, I've been experimenting with them and have hit what I think may be an insoluble problem. First, my successes: But now my failure... The four frogs in the middle are easy enough, the same as the diamond crossing. But the two outer frogs are masked by the point rails... On real model double slips, the rails are different. The slip rails are tighter and shorter.

I've been wondering that myself, thanks!