simonjackson1964

@prinz The car park doesn't seem to want to hold more than 33 cars. Is this because you only built 33 active parking spaces, or is there a table that could be increased in size? [edit to add] I've had a look at the components of the garage itself, and I have answered the question. Honestly, I can't I blame you for stopping where you did. It would be a long and tedious project to add the rest of the spaces! Maybe something to be worked on when one has the time and inclination, adding a few at a time. I might have a go at it, one weekend when I'm bored! Then again I might not... Cheers Simon

@prinz Yes, that's exactly what I needed. Thank you.

Thanks, Herman, that's really cool. One issue though, is that it doesn't work with automatic acceleration, so if you have a line of cars all waiting to go in, the first one buys the ticket and the rest all crash the gate. It needs a bit of tweaking. Unfortunately I don't speak German so I can't read the conditions and actions. I did find the delay on the gate close, but that didn't have the desired effect: The gate closed faster, yes, but the following cars still drove through without stopping.

In version 7 there are eight different car parks, not including the "on-street parking" in the City Streets. In Version 7 gibt es acht verschiedene Parkhäuser, das "On-Street Parking" in den City Streets nicht mitgerechnet. Only one of them actually works, and that is the rotating car-park, which actually works as a road junction. All the rest are decorative only (again, not counting the City Streets parking bays). Nur einer von ihnen funktioniert tatsächlich, und das ist der rotierende Parkplatz, der tatsächlich als Straßenkreuzung fungiert. Der Rest ist nur dekorativ (wieder die Parkbuchten der City Streets nicht mitgezählt). It is possible to create a working car park using the City Streets parking bays, but it's a bit cumbersome. Es ist möglich, einen funktionierenden Parkplatz mit den Parkbuchten der City Streets zu schaffen, aber es ist ein bisschen umständlich. I'm wondering whether it would be possible to add routes and junctions to one or more of those pre-made car parks (especially the multi-story)? Of course it is possible with the virtual track, but to be honest I found this to be even more clunky than using the city streets. Ich frage mich, ob es möglich wäre, einem oder mehreren dieser vorgefertigten Parkplätze (insbesondere dem mehrstöckigen) Routen und Kreuzungen hinzuzufügen? Natürlich ist es mit der virtuellen Strecke möglich, aber ehrlich gesagt fand ich das noch klobiger, als die Straßen der Stadt zu benutzen. Cheers Simon

Quickly created example: The event can be made more efficient by the use of a route keyword and a variable holding the next route on each route, and the event "When a route is activated". but the above is "quick and dirty". All signals are red - then a train approaches. All Signals are green except the entry to E which is yellow. And the train - well a loco in this case... goes past. Using Object (Route) variables would enable a train following to set all the routes as far as the one the train in front is in on a rolling basis, by using the deferred activation, I'm pretty sure. Need to try it.

Hi Hermam I have used "If route is free and can be activated" when dealing with KS type signals. The KS Multi-section signal shows a different aspect if this block and the next block are both free than if only this block is free. So if I have a signal at the start of Route A and route A ends at the signal that is the start of Route B, I want to activate route A to let my train in, and if route B is free and can be activated I set the signal to KS1, if it is not I set the signal to KS2. - I can also use the same function to activate Route B, and check if route C is free and can be activated, thus cascading the green light up the line.

I'm considering making a short instructional video (in English) of the easiest ways I've found of electrifying a layout (with a catenary - Not sure if "catenarify" is a word). I admit I found it hard at first but over the course of several layouts I've learned a few tricks that others might not know.

Looks Good!

That's fantastic, thank you!

Certainly. The ship comes into the harbour, and to avoid smacking the bow on the arbour wall, it stops parallel to the quay, a distance away. This activates the tug, which chugs around on it's own hidden track until it reaches an accurately placed contact, where it stops, bow against the side of the container ship. I attach the ship to the tug, which of course detaches it from the rails it was on. The tug then starts up again, and "pushes" the ship until it hits the quayside, then stops. I attach the ship to the water surface so it moves with the tide and the tug retreats back to it's own moorings. If I used a dummy loco to move the ship, it would be left invisible in the "arrival" track, which feels wrong to me.... I suppose it could work, but I have this fear of loosing the dummy loco. Also, the ships with motors behave like bogie wagons when going around corners, while a ship with a dummy loco behaves like a rally car on ice! Even with the loco in the middlethere is a significantly greater overlap at bow and stern. With the loco at one end or other, forget it! So put the dummy loco in the middle of the ship.... This would mean having a separate stop contact for the Evergreen at each dock, and events to detect which ship is at the contact and either stop it or let it pass through. Putting the dummy loco at the front means the ship's stern swings wide as above. One final issue with this: The dummy loco in the middle doesn't enter a block until the ship is already half way in, while he motorised vehicle ship enters it straight away. The dummy loco leaves a block while the back half of the ship is still in it, while the motorised ship leaves the block once the stern is past the waypoint and not before. This causes lots of collisions when trying to run more than one ship at once. I even tried attaching wagons to the loco. That sort of worked, but requires the loco to be at the front... Can't think of any more off the top of my head. What I do know is that I scrapped the entire layout and started again from scratch with the blue and red "Frachtschiff" ship that I build a container bay for. One last question: could the ships be re-scaled? Put the Captain by one of the hatches on either of the above two ships and he has to duck to get in. Scale them to 1.2 and they work nicely. Cheers, Simon.

Hi (blame google for mistranslations!) A while ago I created a "test layout" to see what it would look like and if I could make it work: Vor einiger Zeit habe ich ein "Testlayout" erstellt, um zu sehen, wie es aussehen würde und ob ich es zum Laufen bringen könnte: Scaled up so the doors/hatches on the ship are 2m high, the ship holds 150 containers. About a tenth of what the real Evergreen ships hold, but a lot for a model. Vergrößert, sodass die Türen/Luken auf dem Schiff 2 m hoch sind, fasst das Schiff 150 Container. Etwa ein Zehntel dessen, was die echten Evergreen-Schiffe fassen, aber viel für ein Modell. Inspired, I decided to create a container port layout... Inspiriert beschloss ich, ein Containerhafen-Layout zu erstellen ... Still a work in progress, obviously... But the ship I'm using only holds 60 containers when scaled up so the sailers can go inside without banging their heads. Offensichtlich noch in Arbeit ... Aber das Schiff, das ich benutze, fasst nur 60 Container, wenn es vergrößert wird, damit die Segler hineingehen können, ohne sich den Kopf zu stoßen. I'd love to use the Evergreen, but it has no engine. I can't put a "dummy loco" in it because that would cause issues with the tug pushing the ship to the dock and pulling it away again... Or at least it would make life a lot more complex. Ich würde gerne den Evergreen benutzen, aber er hat keinen Motor. Ich kann keine "Dummy-Lok" darin einbauen, weil das Probleme mit dem Schlepper verursachen würde, der das Schiff zum Dock schiebt und wieder wegzieht ... Oder zumindest würde es das Leben viel komplexer machen. Is it possible to add an engine to the Evergreen, so she runs as a vehicle? Ist es möglich, der Evergreen einen Motor hinzuzufügen, damit sie als Fahrzeug läuft? Thanks Vielen Dank Simon

You're welcome

Hi Wolfgang You can use 4 and 5 instead of 2 and 1 turned... Cheers Simon

Hi Herman The crossbeam and variants are there, mostly at the station. I took a bit to work out how they worked, but they are easily the best option for electrifying a lot of tracks Quick and hopefully easy tutorial (Points are there just to give track centres): With irregularly spaced tracks where they might be on platforms for example. Start with Variation 1 (default) on the left. Let it autosnap to the track. I recommend doing this on track with Z rotation = 0, 90, 180 or -90 at least for the first one. Adjust the Y coordinate (or x if the track is 90 or -90) to an easy number. I used y=-280. Then add another crossbeam to the next track, set the Y coordinate the same. Then set to Variation 2. Use the Breite animation to adjust the length so it just overlaps with the first crossbeam Repeat for the next track but set to Variation 3 Continue until you are at the last track, using variant three for all of them except the last. For the last track use variation 4. Finally, add one more crossbeam and set to Variation 5. It will automatically go to the other side of the track and if you set the Y coordinate it will join with the number 4. Number 1 and 5 can have the length adjusted to move the pylon away from the track if needed. You are now ready to add the Catenary. One small point - for extra realism add an insulator to the top wire next to the pylon. If it was really like that, the top cable of the catenary would short to earth! The concrete (Beton) pylons can be used where there is a platform on the outer tracks - harder for kids to climb! Left and right variations for corners, and also superimposed to have two wires side by side. I always select the whole shebang once I've done one, copy and paste it and make adjustments if needed. Hope that helps?

Hi Herman I've managed to get Catenary to work so I feel reasonably qualified to offer some advice. Regarding the spacing, I have noticed that if you stretch an individual length of catenary too far, the middle "pops up" demanding a gantry. I use this as my "maximum allowed spacing for gantries on straight track, and also on complex junctions Below see some screen shots of one of my layouts that has a pretty comprehensive catenary system. One tip I've found when using the "realistic" straight catenary is to place it with the automatic snapping turned off, otherwise they tend to decide where they want to go not where you want them!. Turn it back on to position the next gantry. And work in one direction on the track but stretch the catenary backwards towards the previous gantry. Also I use the catenary maintenance railcar to check that the cables are in the correct place so at least one will be in contact with at least one pantograph at all times. It just seems appropriate some how! Cheers Simon (Blame Google for wrong translations!) Hallo Hermann Ich habe es geschafft, Catenary zum Laufen zu bringen, also fühle ich mich einigermaßen qualifiziert, um Ratschläge zu geben. In Bezug auf den Abstand ist mir aufgefallen, dass, wenn Sie eine einzelne Länge der Oberleitung zu weit strecken, die Mitte „auftaucht“ und eine Brücke verlangt. Ich verwende dies als meinen "maximal zulässigen Abstand für Portale auf geraden Gleisen und auch auf komplexen Kreuzungen Unten sehen Sie einige Screenshots von einem meiner Layouts, das ein ziemlich umfassendes Oberleitungssystem hat. Ein Tipp, den ich bei der Verwendung der "realistischen" geraden Oberleitung gefunden habe, ist, sie mit ausgeschaltetem automatischen Einrasten zu platzieren, da sie sonst dazu neigen, zu entscheiden, wohin sie wollen, nicht dorthin, wo Sie sie haben wollen!. Schalten Sie es wieder ein, um das nächste Portal zu positionieren. Und arbeiten Sie auf dem Gleis in eine Richtung, aber strecken Sie die Oberleitung nach hinten in Richtung des vorherigen Portals. Außerdem benutze ich den Oberleitungswartungstriebwagen, um zu überprüfen, ob die Kabel an der richtigen Stelle sind, damit immer mindestens eines mit mindestens einem Stromabnehmer in Kontakt ist. Es scheint nur irgendwie angebracht zu sein! Prost Simon

I did something very similar on a gravel pit layout. Unfortunately not everything on it works the way it should making it difficult to provide screen-shots. However I have just successfully used the exact same technique plus a clever bit of time control (at least, I think it's clever) to do this... (Please note, it's a work in progress).

DUUUDE! Wave like that ya just gotta ride it! (The surfboard is two circles, back to back, 2.5m x 0.5m, coloured red and given a metallic texture).

Thanks again. Yes that does make sense. Track centres vary widely around the world after all. I used to live in Hastings on the South Coast of England, and commuted to London by train. When the line was built in the 18th/19th century, there were a number of tunnels required, and when they were surveyed after construction, the surveyors noticed that only one course of bricks had been used to line the tunnels. They declared this unsafe (so the story goes) and insisted on there being two layers of brick lining the tunnels. So the builders went ahead and added a second layer of bricks. This reduced the tunnel width by about 10" / 250mm. The railway company went ahead and laid two standard gauge tracks through the tunnels, then has to order special rolling stock that was flat sided instead of the usual bow sided, so the trains could pass in the tunnels. When they electrified the line they made each tunnel single track and reduced the service accordingly, and switched to the standard Southern Region EMU. So yes, the track centres through the tunnels was not much more than the standard track gauge!

Another question... Using W790/10L & R with K138/20 and G134 gives a track centre clearance of 4.176m. Using the longer radius W1580/10L & R with the shorter K069/20 and G067 gives a track centre clearance of 5.22m - incidentally the diamond crossing is fractionally off However, using two W1580/10 L or R to do a single crossover, and using two W790/10 L or R with a G138 on the diagonal to do the same, gives 4.176m track centres. Leaving aside the 4.5m long radius points, which according to Wikipedia are "4.50 m (14 ft 9 in) Erfurt–Leipzig/Halle high-speed railway", is 4.176m the actual standard track centre? It's possible with some fiddling around to maintain 5.22mbut is that spacing actually used anywhere?

@BahnLand I see, thanks. That does actually help enormously, and I can see where if using the program to design a physical layout it would be really useful. Of course as all tracks are splines and can be stretched, shrunk, bent, and even edited within certain limits, the actual lengths of track are irrelevant to an extent, but just being able to drop the track in place without having to change it is really handy! Cheers Simon

Hi Guys (and gals, possibly? Let's not be sexist!) I have a question regarding the "Model-Oriented" standard gauge track. There are three straight track lengths, named as: Gegengerade, which Google translates to "Back Straight", Ausgleichsgerade, which Google says is "Regression Line" on it's own or "Compensating Straight" if translated with "Gegengerade", and "Normalgerade" which I kind-of don't need translating unless there is something very wrong: by all logic it should be "Normal Straight". What I would like to know is, what (if any) is the difference?

Just for my 2p worth here, another option is to stop the train at the platform short of the signal, open the doors, wait, then check if the signal is green. If it is, close the doors, and set the train moving. If it isn't then you leave the train at the platform and have the signal changing trigger the event that closes the doors and starts the train. Of course that does mean that when the signal changes you have to check to see if the train's delay is still running but that's just putting a boolean on the loco or the signal, or even on the platform!

Actually what would be really handy would be the ability to edit a route without having to rebuild it, and to copy/paste waypoints to another route, making it quicker and easier to create similar routes that all start in the same place but end in different places or vice versa.

It was set to the "Waiting" icon, and when i clicked it it went to the arrow, saying it was clear. Clicking it again put it back to "Waiting". I've managed to get around the issue by not saving what I did and starting again and this time being a bit more careful with the signal placements, and also testing the route by actually running a train into it... But seriously, this is not the first time I've had a route lock itself up and been unable to clear it, because it thinks there is a train there and there isn't. A manual reset would be ever so handy!

Hi. I seem to have a problem with routes. I want to test them to make sure that they set all the correct points and signals. But once I've tested them there is no way to reset them, and they now think that there is a train waiting to use them. pleeeeeeease will someone implement a "reset" action on the route? So fatr all I've found that works is to delete the whole lot a start again from scratch which is about the most frustrating thing in the world.