October 5, 2020
Multi-Play surveyor and Transdem are going to make it possible to model the railroad network in exact scale at various points in time. There is going to come a time when some of these very complicated Interlockings basically Junctions on the railroad are going to come up. By complex I mean that the routes thru these interlockings are complex enough that some of the people playing the game will have difficulty navigating them. Many of these involve double slip switches.
Some solutions:
Simplify
If trains generally keep to the right you can basically model the junctions with diamonds and not provide alternate routings the switches will just be to navigate the most common routes.
Much of the complexity on the railroad is created so that there are work arounds for failures in the plant and Maintenance events that do not need to be simulated.
Only provide routings on the route being modeled
What if you don't want to use simplification?
Among the most complicated Interlockings in the United States is the routing of trains from the Park Avenue Tunnel on the former New York Central into Grand Central Station. Qualifying on these Interlockings there were I believe three of them took months. They involve the junctions from the Upper Level used by Intercity trains and the Lower Level used by Suburban Commuter trains. Other moves were movements from the station to the storage yards under Park Avenue.
Movements:
Intercity Trains: Mott Haven Coach Yard Empty Equipment for Loading as an Outbound Train basically this is a turn.
Intercity Trains Arrival Terminate then to Coach Yard.
Intercity Flip comes Inbound then turns into an Outbound Train this would come thru the loop to turn around.
Suburban
Terminate at Grand Central then Storage Yard Morning Rush Hour
Flip Comes in unloads goes out as an Outbound Train
Storage Yard to Platform then Outbound Train Evening Rush Hour
To realistically handle this in my opinion will require an Asset that has all the tracks built in and thru Scripting can route trains from Park Avenue thru these interlockings to the platforms based on a digit in the train ID.
For Example:
Name a consist Train Number 136 NYC Train from Poughkeepsie. The Asset would use the 1 and automatically line the route from Park Avenue to the Upper Level of the station and then whey the direction is changed to Mott Haven.
Having one Asset for this is needed and would have the advantage that it could be used on multiple routes just by downloading it.
Multi-Play surveyor and Transdem are going to make it possible to model the railroad network in exact scale at various points in time. There is going to come a time when some of these very complicated Interlockings basically Junctions on the railroad are going to come up. By complex I mean that the routes thru these interlockings are complex enough that some of the people playing the game will have difficulty navigating them. Many of these involve double slip switches.
Some solutions:
Simplify
If trains generally keep to the right you can basically model the junctions with diamonds and not provide alternate routings the switches will just be to navigate the most common routes.
Much of the complexity on the railroad is created so that there are work arounds for failures in the plant and Maintenance events that do not need to be simulated.
Only provide routings on the route being modeled
What if you don't want to use simplification?
Among the most complicated Interlockings in the United States is the routing of trains from the Park Avenue Tunnel on the former New York Central into Grand Central Station. Qualifying on these Interlockings there were I believe three of them took months. They involve the junctions from the Upper Level used by Intercity trains and the Lower Level used by Suburban Commuter trains. Other moves were movements from the station to the storage yards under Park Avenue.
Movements:
Intercity Trains: Mott Haven Coach Yard Empty Equipment for Loading as an Outbound Train basically this is a turn.
Intercity Trains Arrival Terminate then to Coach Yard.
Intercity Flip comes Inbound then turns into an Outbound Train this would come thru the loop to turn around.
Suburban
Terminate at Grand Central then Storage Yard Morning Rush Hour
Flip Comes in unloads goes out as an Outbound Train
Storage Yard to Platform then Outbound Train Evening Rush Hour
To realistically handle this in my opinion will require an Asset that has all the tracks built in and thru Scripting can route trains from Park Avenue thru these interlockings to the platforms based on a digit in the train ID.
For Example:
Name a consist Train Number 136 NYC Train from Poughkeepsie. The Asset would use the 1 and automatically line the route from Park Avenue to the Upper Level of the station and then whey the direction is changed to Mott Haven.
Having one Asset for this is needed and would have the advantage that it could be used on multiple routes just by downloading it.