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My railway career, as a signaller started in 1969 at the tender age of 15, in my home town of March. In those days March had one of the largest marshalling yards in Europe, Whitemoor, which boasted of having two hump shunting yards seperated by the March to Spalding Line and a smaller flat shunting yard over "The knuckle" called Norwood. March also had a large locomotive Depot 3IB, which had at that time class 08,31 and 37 locomotives plus a variety of visiting locomotives. So hump shunting was of great interest to me and was a natural part of the landscape. Imagine my joy when I discovered an American hump shunting yard, Smithville, whilst playing the above session, Not not only that, it had an array of rolling stock in the Inbound and Outbound Yards. As an added bonus the adjacent Motive Power Depot held a number of locomotives of strange types (to me). Thank You Mmonti.
And so my new career as a Trainz Hump Shunter began. After a period of trial and error, not to mention derailments I,m getting quite good at it. My main discovery is that hump shunting in Trainz involves a different technique to that employed in real life. In Whitemoor trains arrived on the Hump reception sidiings and were "cut up" into the required sections by the cutters. A class 08 coupled to the rear and pushed it over the hump at a constant speed. I can,t remember what it was but it must have been about 3-5 mph. As the train went over the top of the Hump the 1st cut detached itself and rolled down the hump.
At the bottom retarders slowed the cut down and it then rolled into it,s allocated siding. Once in the siding it,s speed was controlled by men called "chasers". I found that in Trainz it is not possible to divide the train into "cuts" before you start pushing it over the hump, nor is it possible to drive at a constant speed over the hump for several reasons. I have developed two hump shunt tecniques which work quite well. . The 1st and my preferred method is to push the train over the top of the hump at 5 mph, make the "cut", throttle to 0 and as the train slows down the cut should detach and start rolling. When the train has slowed down to 2 mph, open throttle, I use notch 4 usually, wait for train to reach 5 mph and repeat. This is not always possible however as you also have to monitor the previous cuts rolling into the yard and operate the point switches. And also, the cuts don,t always detach from the train. And so this leads to my 2nd, and easier technique. I stop the train on the down slope and then make the cut. End of Part 1.
And so my new career as a Trainz Hump Shunter began. After a period of trial and error, not to mention derailments I,m getting quite good at it. My main discovery is that hump shunting in Trainz involves a different technique to that employed in real life. In Whitemoor trains arrived on the Hump reception sidiings and were "cut up" into the required sections by the cutters. A class 08 coupled to the rear and pushed it over the hump at a constant speed. I can,t remember what it was but it must have been about 3-5 mph. As the train went over the top of the Hump the 1st cut detached itself and rolled down the hump.
At the bottom retarders slowed the cut down and it then rolled into it,s allocated siding. Once in the siding it,s speed was controlled by men called "chasers". I found that in Trainz it is not possible to divide the train into "cuts" before you start pushing it over the hump, nor is it possible to drive at a constant speed over the hump for several reasons. I have developed two hump shunt tecniques which work quite well. . The 1st and my preferred method is to push the train over the top of the hump at 5 mph, make the "cut", throttle to 0 and as the train slows down the cut should detach and start rolling. When the train has slowed down to 2 mph, open throttle, I use notch 4 usually, wait for train to reach 5 mph and repeat. This is not always possible however as you also have to monitor the previous cuts rolling into the yard and operate the point switches. And also, the cuts don,t always detach from the train. And so this leads to my 2nd, and easier technique. I stop the train on the down slope and then make the cut. End of Part 1.
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