simonjackson1964

Just because, more as an exercise in doing the scenery...: It doesn't actually do anything, I just wanted to see f I could make a model that was a close to the photo as possible... I can still see a few things I could tweak to get it closer, but it's never going to be the same , so I'm happy.

A simple solution is to start the vehicle moving in the new direction, delay a quarter of a second and then assign the new target! Eine einfache Lösung besteht darin, das Fahrzeug in die neue Richtung zu fahren, eine Viertelsekunde zu verzögern und dann das neue Ziel zuzuweisen!

Thank you. I have no idea why I didn't work that out for myself as I managed to create the catch-point shown in the photograph easily, the same way (reduce the angle to 5°). Now to try it out!

I'm not sure if this is possible or not, but something that would be nice to see is a gradual or partial change in track texture? See how on the prototype the the unused rails are a lot rustier than the ones that see regular traffic, and how that rust extends almost to the end of the blade? Would it be possible to make a texture for track that did the same thing? Or somehow separate the curved rails from the straight ones? The ballasting on the above snip, I did "manually", to see if I could. Lay track on the 0-height baseboard, without ballast, then raised the board by 16 cm (at 1:1 scale) and paint the ballast on. This saves the abrupt and "unrealistic" change in track texture that can clearly be seen in the prototype photo..... Er? Wait... Um? Never mind! Sehen Sie auf dem Prototyp, dass die unbenutzten Schienen viel rostiger sind als die, die dem normalen Verkehr ausgesetzt sind, und wie sich dieser Rost fast bis zum Ende der Klinge erstreckt? Wäre es möglich, eine Textur für eine Spur zu erstellen, die dasselbe tut? Oder irgendwie die gebogenen Schienen von den geraden trennen? Ich habe das Ballastieren auf dem obigen Ausschnitt "manuell" durchgeführt, um zu sehen, ob ich es tun könnte. Legen Sie die Gleise ohne Schotter auf die Grundplatte in Höhe 0, dann heben Sie die Platte 16 cm an (Maßstab 1:1) und färben Sie den Schotter ein. Dies erspart die abrupte und "unrealistische" Änderung der Streckentextur, die auf dem Prototypfoto deutlich zu sehen ist ... Äh? Warte... ähm? egal

Yes it works... The biggest snag was the fact that I had a list in a table in a list, and the indexing got tangled. Solved with a user-event, pass the inner list and the index to it down as parameters, and pop the correct item into the label. That also meant that the timer event controls the cycling of the index and calls the same user event! Now to fill in the rest of the trains, and make it work for more than one platform...!

Thanks Easy. Probably the easiest solution might be to split the label into two, one above the other? Something I have noticed on the layout I'm slowly trying to build (and might get finished before V12 is ready) is that there are trains that go a long way, all the way from the Baltic ports to practically to the Czech border, calling at over 30 stations on the way. Obviously there is no way 30 place names are going to fit in that little box. What I am planning to do is get as many in as I can. but have the table hold a list of place names, and a timed index to rotate through them, the same as on a lot of prototype stations I've seen. I'll let people know if it works.

I've almost got this sussed, but the "Bahnsteig Abschnitte" is defeating me. Translated as "Platform sections", I'm assuming the letters represent the coaches on the train and the numbers 1, 2 and X represent first class, second class and maybe a restaurant car? But what is beating me is getting the numbers under the letters. Obviosly when typing in manually one presses return at the end of the line. But I have a list of tables each holding a departure. Trying to get my table entry to split the text over two lines is failing. The same applies to the intermediate destinations. I think it may have to do with the "Format" box, but I have no idea what to put in there. Please help?

@Goetz that sounds really useful! @hb.resing In the mean time on V7, the ET420 power car has an animation that changes the destination board between two different values depending on which of the variations is selected. Another option is to create a sign board by attaching a text label to a rectangle primitive of the right size, position it over the destination board on the vehicle and have an event that makes it invisible or visible. Of course this is a crude and temporary thing, but it will give the desired effect with a little care an attention.

That makes sense, yes. (both answers). Having messed around for half an hour it is possible to get a straight contact wire between two hangers using two start-tunnel catenaries, but it's a pain! Either you pit one at each end and meet them in the middle, which if the track is not straight puts a kink in the wire that basically would not be there without a support, or what I did was stretch a single catenary for the correct length, check it's "width" (y-distance, which for some reason is the length) and halve it, then move the catenary away from everything and line it to z=0°. Then add another one to the end using the + icon. Change both to "Tunnel Anfang" and set whichever one is the wrong way around to z=180°. Then group them together. With auto-align turned off I put it on the track and with trial and error and a technique known as binary-chop searching (learned from my days as a programmer) I managed to line it up correctly

Addendum: By placing two "Tunnel end" catenaries end to end it is possible to get 79.46m and by adding "tunnel" lengths, one can extend the span indefinitely.... Nachtrag: Indem zwei "Tunnelend"-Oberleitungen Ende an Ende platziert werden, ist es möglich, 79,46 m zu erhalten, und durch Hinzufügen von "Tunnel"-Längen kann man die Spannweite unbegrenzt verlängern ....

The longest single span of an individual catenary length on the model is set at 39.73m. Die längste Einzel spannweite einer einzelnen Oberleitungslänge des Modells ist auf 39,73 m festgelegt. Add just 5mm to that length and the centre of the catenary "pops up", requiring an additional support. Fügen Sie dieser Länge nur 5 mm hinzu und die Mitte der Oberleitung "springt auf", was eine zusätzliche Unterstützung erfordert. Is there a reason for this, like a physical limit in the program? Because in real life, a single span can be up to 65m, possibly longer. Gibt es dafür einen Grund, wie zum Beispiel eine physikalische Grenze im Programm? Denn im wirklichen Leben kann eine einzelne Spannweite bis zu 65 m betragen, möglicherweise länger. Google Earth Satellite view, line drawn between two catenary pylons. Google Earth Satellitenansicht, Linie gezogen zwischen zwei Oberleitungsmasten. Is there a way to turn off this "pop-up", because it is impossible for me to put the correct number of pylons on the model to make it as accurate as possible? Gibt es eine Möglichkeit, dieses "Pop-up" auszuschalten, weil es mir unmöglich ist, die richtige Anzahl von Pylonen auf das Modell zu setzen, um es so genau wie möglich zu machen?

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Trying to find a model to build that is less complicated and can be a bit mire realistic, I settled on Fürstenberg. The station building in reality looks nothing like the model... I'm guessing that the original station building was demolished at some point, and the one there now is a replacement? But after the successful scratch-build below, I might just rebuild the station building myself! There's a building on the island platform at Fürstenberg station, that is not represented in the models. I think I did a pretty good job?

Correction: Evergreen is scaled to 1.2, not 2.0. After all, she has to fit through the Suez canal somehow, ha ha! Korrektur: Evergreen ist auf 1,2 skaliert, nicht auf 2,0. Schließlich muss sie doch irgendwie durch den Suezkanal passen, haha!

Hi folks // Hallo Leute I've often admired the suspension bridge models that @FeuerFighter made, but I can't help but notice that they are a bit twisted. I can't really do much about that, and to be perfectly honest I would never be able to make something even half as good. But what I have done is created a scaled up version of the large suspension bridge. Now just under 0.5km from end to end, and 100m high, it is still on the small side compared to such bridges as the old Severn bridge (1.6km x 136m) or the Golden Gate (2.7km x 227m) it now beats others like the Menai bridge (417m x 47m). Ich habe die Hängebrückenmodelle von @FeuerFighter oft bewundert, aber ich kann nicht anders, als zu bemerken, dass sie ein bisschen verdreht sind. Daran kann ich nicht wirklich viel ändern, und um ganz ehrlich zu sein, ich könnte niemals etwas halb so Gutes machen. Aber ich habe eine vergrößerte Version der großen Hängebrücke erstellt. Jetzt knapp 0,5 km von Ende zu Ende und 100 m hoch, ist sie im Vergleich zu Brücken wie der alten Severn-Brücke (1,6 km x 136 m) oder der Golden Gate (2,7 km x 227 m) immer noch eher klein und schlägt jetzt andere wie die Menai-Brücke (417 x 47 m). It now carries 4 lanes of traffic, complete with crash barriers. Es trägt jetzt 4 Fahrspuren, komplett mit Leitplanken. The two end road sections are level and aligned to 0° relative to the bridge, and I have left the ends of the steel crash barriers open on purpose. Die beiden Endabschnitte der Straße sind eben und im 0°-Winkel zur Brücke ausgerichtet, die Enden der Stahlleitplanken habe ich bewusst offen gelassen. In addition, the centre span is now high enough to allow the Albatross ( @ 1 scale), the Evergreen ( @ 2 scale), and the three schooners (Borgfeld, Arona, and Christina) (@ 1.25 scale) to pass under it, as long as the ships are lowered to bring their plimsoll lines to the same level as the bridge - technically they should be lower as the bridge piers should be above sea level and the ships hulls should be below sea level. Außerdem ist die mittlere Spannweite jetzt hoch genug, um die Albatross (Maßstab @ 1), die Evergreen (Maßstab @ 2) und die drei Schoner (Borgfeld, Arona und Christina) (Maßstab 1,25) darunter passieren zu lassen, solange die Schiffe abgesenkt werden, um ihre Plimsoll-Linien auf das gleiche Niveau wie die Brücke zu bringen - technisch gesehen sollten sie niedriger sein, da die Brückenpfeiler über dem Meeresspiegel und die Schiffsrümpfe unter dem Meeresspiegel liegen sollten. (In case you're wondering at the scaling of the ships, those are the scales at which the ship captain can fit through the doors without ducking!) (Falls Sie sich über die Skalierung der Schiffe wundern, das sind die Maßstäbe, bei denen der Schiffskapitän durch die Türen passen kann, ohne sich zu ducken!) If anyone wants a copy, to save having to put it together yourself, send me a PM. Falls jemand ein Exemplar haben möchte, um sich das Zusammenbauen zu ersparen, schickt mir eine PN. Cheers Simon

88 is my best score so far...

The solution is simple: Edit the diamond crossing to add switch positions to the two track routes. Then the Routes (capital R to distinguish them from the routes contained within the track section) will select the correct route through the crossing, disabling the other one. At present,the default for a diamond crossing is that both routes through it are always active, meaning that bot can be selected at the same time. Adding switch positions prevents this.

Yep, I was being obtuse, because you seemed to have missed my point. I know that junctions are always signal protected. The question was rhetorical, or rather, a self-ask in response to this: In other words it doesn't work with junctions, so how do we make it work with junctions? Your comment was missing the point. I never said they were. I said that I am considering self block from a modern perspective and central block from an older perspective. That neither excludes nor includes Old Self block, nor modern Centre block. The system I have devised will work just fine with KS, 69 and semaphore signals. It will need tweaking to work with KS multiblock, but it will need tweaking to include advance signals on either of the other systems. I haven't got as far as them yet. You are answering a question I have not asked. Allow me to ask you one: When is a train allowed to request a route at a junction? 10m away? 100m? 1km? 10 km? What, to you is a reasonable distance between the train and the junction at which the junction should be set for that train's approach? The point is that at some point in time the signalman, and/or the Automatic Train Protection System is/are going to notice that a train is approaching a junction. And either the computer system will flip some relays, or a human in a signal box or control centre will flip switches, press buttons and/or pull levers, thus changing the points and the signals. Where this happens in real life is down to the allowed track speed, the positioning of the track contacts and the alertness of the person pulling the levers. As I already said, back in the days of levers, wires, bell-codes, metal tokens and semaphore signals, it took time to get everything ready (I did a spell working a signal box on a preserved line!), so if there is an express coming through you would want to get those points changed, level crossing barriers down and signals set as quickly a possible. Of course for a stopping service that wasn't strictly necessary. But the think is, on a model, it is up to you, the modeller, where to put your track contact. First of all, how do you know that I was using it in inappropriate places? Second of all, this is why I looked for and found what I consider to be a better and easier method. In that case, I respectfully request that all the diamond crossings in the catalogue have switches added to them, in order to avoid this highly unrealistic situation: However, if you look at what I actually said rather than what you think I said, and put it back in the original context: Does the block start at the signal in front of the junction? Or at the signal after the junction? Does the signal after the junction even exist? The signal in front of the junction protects the junction. It goes green when requested by an approaching train at a distance determined by the location of the track contact. Provided the diamond crossing has switch positions added, then selecting the route from bottom left to top right will block that route, the route left to right along the bottom and the route right to left along the bottom. It will set the junction signal bottom left to green set the lower point to curved, the diamond crossing to "angled" and that's it. What I'm saying is that the same route might as well include the block starter signal on the upper right exit track as well, because you are never going to set the one without the other. If a train cannot enter that block, it should not be allowed to enter the junction.

Except when a train is approaching the junction...! "Always" implies that the signal will never be set to green, which of course would not work! I'm talking about the self-block, from a modern layout perspective, but also "Central bock" from the perspective of hand pulled semaphore signals when every block section had it's own signal box, and bell codes were used to pass messages from one signal box to the next. If box A sends "Express entering block" to box B, Box B will want to send "Clear for Express" to box C, and as soon as he gets the acknowledgement, will clear the signal, and get the token ready for the fireman on the express to grab in passing, thus blocking the line. I tried doing it the opposite way to the above and having the route reselect itself as soon as it was released. It doesn't work anything like as well as the simple cascade system. The track contact to set the route at the facing junction can be as close to that junction as you want, or it can set multiple junctions, but I can't guarantee that won't cause conflicts if there are trailing junctions in between. True. However, for the route system on V7 to work, the route must start on the other side of the junction to the block it equates to. Otherwise the route will not set the junction, nor the signal protecting the junction. Whether the sections of track between the signals are separate routes or not, the route must start at the signal before the junction in order to correctly protect the junction where the actual block starts is not really relevant to a virtual model railway. On the trailing junction (right to left) each route will select the next one and cascade through, unless the junction is already blocked for that route (and using a diamond crossing with track switches added ensures this works). On the facing junction, a track contact in the preceding block will attempt to activate the route the train requests.. If activated, that route will then cascade to the next facing junction, or next blocked section. Whether the block entry signals after the junction are the starts of their own Routes or included in the routes that lead to them is not important from the perspective of the model as it will work either way However, you would never stop a train on the junction, you would hold it at the junction signal, so those block starter signals should be included in the route that starts at the junction signal. Cheers Simon

Apologies to anyone who has already figured this out on their own, or has actually got a better way of doing it. Something I have noticed while travelling by train is that on modern railway networks it is normal for the signals on the main line to default to "Clear", green, "drive" or off (all meaning the same), unless there is a train in the block they are protecting. This is to avoid unnecessarily slowing an express train. I can't say this for certain but I can imagine that in the days of hand pulled signals, the signalmen would want to clear the express through as far as possible too. One way to try and simulate this on MBS v7 would be to have a single route containing all the block sections you wish to clear at once. The problem with this is that the route will not fully release and thus will not allow another train into the first block, until the last block is empty. Obviously this kind-of defeats the object. The ideal way to set routes is a one-to-one correlation between block sections and routes. A better way to simulate the route of the train being cleared as far as possible is to "cascade" or "domino" the individual routes. Each route will have a variable on it, naming the next route in sequence. There can also be a keyword if you wish but it's not strictly necessary. An event "When any route is activated/deactivated", holds the condition: "If Trigger Route is Active", and the action: "Activate Route (Trigger-Route.Next-Route)". Defer Request is important, as at some point you will have a route that cannot be activated immediately due to a train being on it. I have tested this and it works perfectly on a straight track between two depots and on a continuous circuit. Set one route to clear and the rest cascade all the way around. On a continuous loop with a single train it will clear the entire loop except the one with the train on, but that will be deferred until the train leaves, allowing the train to run indefinitely on the loop with no intervention. But what about junctions? What if there is more than one possible route for my train to take? For this we require a slight modification: On any route where there is more than one possible next route, do not add the "Next Route" variable to it. Instead, place a track contact at the earliest place a train will encounter it - this will usually be immediately after any preceding junction, inside the first block after that junction. This track contact should have a keyword "Junction" (or similar), and a list variable holding the routes available for that junction. While this would normally be two, a multiple junction for sidings would be treated as a single junction. NB: This solution does not cater for choosing the First Free Siding. I leave that for people to figure out on their own! But if each train always goes into the same station platform, for example this works just fine. So: Track contact in place. Now each locomotive that will pass through the junction will need a list of routes it will take at each facing junction it comes to. If the train will only go through one facing junction, still use a list, as this cuts down on coding. A list of one element is still a list. Now we need an event, activated when a track contact with Keyword "Junction" is triggered upon entering The keyword is important and can be added to any track contact including a signal, as long as it is in the right place and has the list of available routes on. Within this event we have two nested iterations, one for the triggering contact and the other for the triggering vehicle. It doesn't matter which order they are in, but I usually put the track contact one outside because usually (not always) it will have the fewer iterations. Within the inner iteration, the condition "If Iter1 = Iter2" will say "This train is taking this route", and if the condition is met, set the route active-deferred. Important: This is not necessary on trailing junctions, only facing. The route immediately before the junction is the one that does not have the "Next Route" variable and is the last possible place that the "Junction" track contact can be. The routes that start at the junction should each have their own "Next Route", so that when the junction is set, the cascade/domino will continue Terminus routes, including those ending at a virtual depot or fiddler yard, will not have a "Next Route". This should work, in theory, if routes for more than one junction are placed within the same available list on a single track contact, thus cascading past multiple junctions. However I've not tested this on an actual layout, only on a test-bed. I hope someone finds this useful. Cheers. Simon

Hi Henry. Thanks, but I already did exactly that and saved the results in my own catalogue, for all the crossings in the "Model Oriented, Standard Gauge" set. It's also possible (but a little bit more complex) to turn a double or single slip into a crossing, by removing route 2 (and 3 if it's a double), and removing the corresponding switch positions. The complicated bit was figuring out how to save them! I have tested how they behave and they work exactly as they should: routes remain blocked until the last wagon is clear, then they select. This is why I think this should be done to all the crossings in the catalogue, because it is how the trains are supposed to behave prototypically.

Fair enough. It was just a thought that it would be a permanent solution, rather than having to re-solve it whenever it crops up... What I might do is see if I can save the edited crossings in "My Models", so I've got them when I want them.

So... that worked and was a lot easier that what had done. Which begs the question: Rather than only using slips, and removing the slip routes, could we not have switch positions 0 and 1 on the crossings? Is this something that would be easy to implement and not require any change to the way the route system works? I mean yes it requires someone to go through all the crossings in the catalogue and add the switches to them, but at the end of the day it could easily justify the time spent in the simple fact that you no longer have to protect crossings from two trains being on them together!

In fact, I'm going to replace all the crossings with single slips, edited to remove the slip route. So much simpler!

Got it, and fixed with a couple of events that work for all crossings in both directions. Of course the other option is to replace all crossings with double slips, because being points, they have the interlocking in their crossing routes!