Editing routes

TunerTom

New member
I have TRAINZ 12 and have begun to edit some of the included routes to make (what I call) a new trip. For example, under the route... N&W Appalation Coal, and within that route are two included 2 trips, namely "Eastbound Coal Train" and "Westbound Coal Train". I chose to add a third trip, of my own. To do so, I opened the existing "Eastbound Coal", deleted the consist that was there. I then navigated in the Map View to an extreme corner of the map and placed an "Aerotrain" there. The next part was a but tedious... Using the map view I started the train in motion watching turnout positions carefully as I went. My goal was to transverse the map as far as possible. I was able through altering ZOOM magnification and start/stop the train as necessary... setting the turnouts as I go. It took a while, and I was able to drive the trip. Unfortunately, I missed a turnout somewhere about two-thirds along... Of course the train derailed and the session stopped. Now, here's "the rub"...

The Trip I saved can no longer be edited. There seems to be no way to accomplish that. Am I missing something?
Some food for thought... it would be nice if a train when it derails (home made trips as well as included trips) it would announce the turnout number or the end of track bumper where the derailment occurred, so you could search for that location on the map.

My REAL question... Is there any way wi edit a home-made trip?

My sincere thanks for any help I might be able to get.
 
Unfortunately you can't edit a saved driving session, meaning on you are driving and saving, and not one that has been opened and modified or created in the Session editor. All editing has to be done prior to running the session in the Surveyor/Session editor.

From past experience, I will say the saving periodically gives chances to recover from the errors and proceed along. Once a problem spot is passed, I would save again so that place doesn't have to be traversed again.
 
Good answer. Make a habit of starting a session and run it; As you see problems, make a note and afterwards, go to the route or main session and modify whatever it is. The sessions you run will eventually come to an unusable state because something derails or a tidal wave floods everything. So you have to start all over again. At that point all the changes will be there. I have never been able to run a session for more than 2 days (Trainz time) before I made a mistake or something happened. Doing this you are constantly updating and improving your World.
 
Thanks all of you. I understand what you say... I truly love travelling through a route to see "what's there" I've checked some routes on Google Earth and "sure enough, what I've looked for is actually there. I wonder if they somehow used Google Earth to collect data!
 
Thanks all of you. I understand what you say... I truly love travelling through a route to see "what's there" I've checked some routes on Google Earth and "sure enough, what I've looked for is actually there. I wonder if they somehow used Google Earth to collect data!

Hi Tom,

A lot of people do that now especially if they are using TransDEM to create the terrain. With prototypical terrain, or close to it actually, many people than use buildings or make buildings and other assets to match. A good example is a Hoosic Tunnel route I've been sort of involved in. Another Trainz user and I traveled to North Adams, MA, it's about 2 hours from where we live, to investigate the tunnel. He's working on a project for a museum out there and wanted me to go along. He now has a ton, and I mean a ton of custom buildings to make, not including laying the track, although I did a quick track-laying for him on the route, he'll now have to smooth stuff out.

One of the biggest problems we ran into is stuff is no longer there. The era he's working on is the 1930s to 1940s which was a transition period between diesels and the termination of the electric tunnel motors which used to connect on the front of the steam locos. The yard in North Adams today is only a two tracks and the old Boston & Albany facility that the B&M shared is no longer there. The only buildings that are still there are the old B&M office and the former Electric maintenance shop, which today is a paper scrap dealer. Everything else, the large coaling tower, station, catenary supports, tracks, old freight houses, etc. are all gone. There isn't even a trace of them anywhere. Of the rail infrastructure we have the B&M bridge which on quick appearance looks like a standard Warren Truss, but it turns out to be angled funny. There are also other details such as the big eye hooks used to carry the messenger wire across the bridge to the electric's termination just outside the Main Street tunnel.

Anyway, you'll find it's more common now than you think. I'm glad you are enjoying the program. :)

John
 
OT:
Got back from Hoosac Tunnel foray Sunday afternoon, just in time to surround mum with her brood, recount mum stories and slurp beer into her flowers!
It was a great week, John. Oh yes..................every thing that wasn't there last trip we made out there,.........well, it still isn't there..........:(
So, we're still trying to hunt down old photos...........
 
On multiple occasions over the years I"ve made suggested adding to Trainz, or creating a stand alone utility to implement, allowing a session which has already been started to be opened for editing. In my case, I wanted it to have the ability to make slight adjustments to the location of cars, such as moving them from one track to another in a large plant, or from one end of a track to another, or to be able to simulate an interchange with another railroad by replacing a set of cars on an interchange track with a different set of cars. Another thing that such a capability would allow, is to change the load / empty status of cars. This would allow better representation of how real railroading works in the US, where a car is dropped off at a customer today for loading or unloading, and the railroad comes back tomorrow or the next day and takes away the loaded (if it was an empty) or empty (if it was a load) car.

It seems that all of the posts in the Suggestion Boxcar that I made asking for this capability have been purged sometime within the past couple of years.

ns
 
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