Confused about turnout derailments

[avsteve]

TRS2006 user asks:
On routes I've designed, running a train at any speed into the wrong leg of a turnout causes train to derail. The pre-designed routes are tolerant, the turnout lets the train through.

Am I missing something? I thought prototype practice is that a train can enter any leg and come out OK at the points.

 

[cascaderailroad]

There are "spring switchs" that are designed to allow a prototype trains wheels to slip through a switch.

It is not recommended that a normal turnout in the prototype be forced, like that of a spring switch ... but a train can force its way through ... sometimes ... usually it bends the throw rod, or damages the switch link to the hand/automated throw, if there is not a spring in the throw rod. It can derail in alot of cases, especially at speed.

 

[avsteve]

Casecaderailroad,
Thank you. So prototypes can be flexible or not about allowing wrong-way entry, makes sense that Trainz should allow an option to let trains go the wrong way too. I tried the junction rule option to lock or unlock, but that seemed to mean can the driver throw the switch, rather than can the driver go the wrong way. I was looking for a way to tell Trainz it doesn't matter on my route, as seems to be the case on the sample sessions I've been driving lately.
Steve

 

[tomurban]

TRS2006 user asks:
On routes I've designed, running a train at any speed into the wrong leg of a turnout causes train to derail. The pre-designed routes are tolerant, the turnout lets the train through.

Am I missing something? I thought prototype practice is that a train can enter any leg and come out OK at the points.

I think you can fix this by setting the derailment level to "never"

tomurban

 

[cascaderailroad]

Whats really fun is to use AI and "drive to" and "drive via", and your train throws its own turnouts.

 

[avsteve]

tomurban, thanks, I did try setting the deraillment realism option, in session rules, to None. Did have the option for Never unless that's somewhere else, still derailled.

cascade, you're right on about AI, it opens whole new possibilities that I've hardly started to explore; I'm a fairly new user still working on the basic stuff.

To all, my turnout tracks look misaligned to me but not my doing, I think Trainz just draws them as it wants to. I wonder if the turnouts I see that work well, for example on Northbay County, were I can run the train manually without setting the switches the right way -- maybe that was done with a better turnout drawing algorithm. -- Steve

 

[avsteve]

Hi all, after cleaning up the turnout's lines a little more, it finally worked (without the magical switch I was looking for). But running the wrong side of the turnout and looking closely I saw the train was literally jumping from one side to the other. Near deraillment. Apparently the kind of turnout that allowed wrong-side entry wasn't meant to be used except in a pinch. End of experiment, but thanks for comments!