"All I felt was a bump said the conductor" --- from the Asbury Grove Chronicle.

[JCitron]

"All I felt was a bump said the conductor" --- from the Asbury Grove Chronicle.

Something happened, and the conductor, engineer, and passengers amazingly survived this totally bizarre accident yesterday due to an unusual train collision. The conductor, Al Jones, who is a 40 year vetran of the old Boston and Maine, and now MBTA, was busy collecting tickets and fares as the train was pulling away. Al says, "All I felt was a bump. Then to my amazement, we were flying in the air!" Now there's one problem, how are the passengers and crew going to be rescued? The officials are still trying to fathom this one out. They're even contemplating a call to the National Guard, or perhaps the Air National Guard to air-lift the passengers out of the flying train.

This was one of the most bizarre accidents I ever saw in Trainz, and have never seen anything like this since! This was TRS2004, and the pictures were taken back in 2/17/2006. I recall that I had about 17 or 20 AI drivers running all over the place, and things started to get stuttery. I did the old look for whose stuck, and came across this. I couldn't resist a few pictures of the event. This was what I would suppose a typical AI feat. Another train, which you can see in the background, had flipped a junction under the lead RDC just as the train was crossing over the junction. This caused the whole train to derail, and exaggerate it's derailment by flying. Talk about weird physics back then.

This portion of my old route is long gone. As I've improved my building techiques, this section became a customer on the chopping block. I grew tired of the area, and couldn't really find a way to fix it the way I wanted. I tried retexturing, replacing trees, etc. but that didn't work. More recently I've been replacing sections with DEMs and spending a lot of time focusing on the realism of junctions, etc. Using both aerial photos, Youtube videos, etc., I've found some nice ideas to work with, so when this part of the mainline was abandoned a year ago, I haven't missed it.

Anyway I had forgotten about the pictures and came across them on ImageShack the other day, and had to repost them. Sadly the original story, which was written much better back then is long gone. That disappeared when the old forums crashed.

John

By jcitron at 2006-02-17

By jcitron at 2006-02-17

 

[NJCurmudgeon]

I can't say I've seen that before, but I have had trains passing through each other when one stops too near a junction...pretty interesting when you're in cab view too! Personally, I like how you had a playground between the tracks and a road with that dinky fence!

 

[JCitron]

I can't say I've seen that before, but I have had trains passing through each other when one stops too near a junction...pretty interesting when you're in cab view too! Personally, I like how you had a playground between the tracks and a road with that dinky fence!

Trains passing through each other is a "normal" thing in Trainz. The same with road traffic that jumps the crossings. This is because there is no collision detection enabled. This is due to the amount of overhead that is needed to track the physics, and the fact that each and every traincar and vehicle would need some extra mesh and a bounding box to delineate where the collision area would be.

Yes the mini-fence. This was put in during the pre-lawsuit error before the NIMBYs moved in. Back then the kids knew enough to stay in the playground and not go wandering off down the tracks or in the road!

This really was a totally weird accident, and I've never seen one like this since. In 2004, the trains used to crash and fly, but this one was the best and needed a little background story to go along with it.

So many people say that TRS2004 was the best, well after 4 SPs it became close to TRS2006. That was a step up, but doesn't come close to what we have today with TS2009 and up. (Putting on my flame suit because I probably just started a barrage of flames and arrows my way!

John

 

[jlp1551]

I had been wondering why they had invisible tracks and things in Trainz. I just finished reading about using them for old time wagons, ships, and even planes flying around. This almost looks like that!!! Really nice effect!

 

[JCitron]

I had been wondering why they had invisible tracks and things in Trainz. I just finished reading about using them for old time wagons, ships, and even planes flying around. This almost looks like that!!! Really nice effect!

Jeff,

The invisible tracks are cool things to have. I use them for abandoned ROW where I want to put in bridge abutments without any bridge connected to them.

This case, however there was no invisible track. The AI trains had an accident. Notice the red ! above the RDC train in the front.

John

 

[jlp1551]

Yes John. I gathered that by reading some of the posts about the invisible track, had been wondering about why invisible tracks until then.
I did see the red over the RDC just didn't know what that was. I'm learning more about Trainz every time I use it, been having all sorts of fun! No room for a real model, and this is much quicker too!
So now, while I'm building a layout, she's playing he games online! At least we are in the same room, together. Also keeps me off the streets at night!lol

 

[JCitron]

Yes John. I gathered that by reading some of the posts about the invisible track, had been wondering about why invisible tracks until then.
I did see the red over the RDC just didn't know what that was. I'm learning more about Trainz every time I use it, been having all sorts of fun! No room for a real model, and this is much quicker too!
So now, while I'm building a layout, she's playing he games online! At least we are in the same room, together. Also keeps me off the streets at night!lol

Jeff,

The older versions of Trainz had little red (!) over the cars when they derailed. The current version puts yellow Xs instead then has the trains fade away. In the "olden days of 2006", there was no rerail portal, or if the rule was there, I didn't have it installed. So if a derailment happened, that was the end of the game until everything was started over. I have to admit this made me more cautious with switching and driving because I never like restarting sessions again.

The invisible track can also be used for cars on the road, making trains run on track that isn't really track, but a mesh object such as a hard surfaced road that has embedded track in it. Ben Dorsey the bridge guy, uses them for his bridges. His bridges are scenery objects and tracks connect to the invisible track that crosses them. You'll also find invisible track is used for driveable cars on roads, airplanes, and boats.

Yup, this is a great hobby and for me too is a replacement of a model railroad I no longer have the room for. My GF used to play on Facebook and her little bubble game online, and I'd Trainz instead. Now with the grand piano, and low funds, my N Scale layout is no longer. Recent health issues don't help because I break things too easily now, and I can't afford to replace the locomotives I bought years ago.

You'll notice that with Trainz you'll be able to build a railroad that any modeler would envy. I'm trying to convince the real N Scale modelers of that over at the Atlas Model Railroad forums, but no one has bitten the V-scale bug yet.

I agree at least you're doing something together, and this sure will keep you off the streets!

John