HELP: My grade crossings are NOT working in any session I create or edit.

JonMyrlennBailey

Well-known member
I created a session based upon Mojave Subdivision in Trainz 2012. The crossing gates do not go down and the lights do not flash when the train approached or crosses as they do in built in Routes Scenarios. Reinstalling the software did not help.

Is there something I have to do in Surveyor to get crossings to function?

Also, how do I enable automobile traffic in edited/created sessions?
 
I have just submitted a ticket about this problem as follows:

We have received your request and will get back to you with further details shortly. You can login to the support center or check your mailbox for further updates.

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[TD]#DMP-416-41229[/TD]
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[TD]JonMyrlennBailey[/TD]
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[TD]vernon12345mccoy@yahoo.com[/TD]
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[TH]Subject: My issue is not listed[/TH]
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[TD="align: left"]Please enter your support request here:

1. I have created and edited a Session based upon the built-in Mojave Subdivision Route. I have been able to customize driver commands and add trains and delete content but there is trouble when my session is run and when my trains are driven. Some items (objects) on the route layout are not working as normal. Reinstalling Trainz 12 and running patches has not helped.

a. the grade crossings don't function on a custom session based on Mojave Subdivision- no gate operation, no sounds or flashing lights...it is important to note that these crossings DO in fact work in the built-in Scenarios, such as the Waylong Stall, associated with this route.

b. I can't seem to enable moving automobile traffic in my custom session.

I only prefer to create custom sessions from built-in routes and not design routes from scratch in Surveyor.

A "custom session" is a session I create and modify by using Edit Session and/or Create Session.
My primary interest in Session Creation is to populate a given favorite Route with rolling stock of my liking and configure driven commands so I can run my trains however I like. By doing this I seem to lose some functionality of the route as in the operation of crossing gates, for example

Is there something I have to configure to enable grade crossings (where motor roadways cross train tracks) operation and enable moving cars on roadways in custom sessions?

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There is a possibility that Jointed Rail, the group that created this route for TS12 originally, used the ATLS-type of road crossings instead of the standard all-in-one automatic crossings. The ATLS - Automatic TRAM Line System (I think I have that acronym spelled out correctly!), is created by user Boat. It is made up of multiple components including special invisible trains and triggers, which actuate them when an actual train crosses over the specific trigger asset. These are controlled through numbered channels, which are setup in the routes and sessions.

You might want to check this out:

https://youtu.be/1X1Ll7OUNHA

Keep in mind that some things, such as the ATLS controls, are best done in Surveyor route editing mode, and not the session, and these settings are set globally at this level. A session will only make modifications in that moment of time. It's hard to explain, so bear with me here.

If these are regular crossings, ones that have gates, track and signal lights all on one piece, you need to ensure that all the parts are connected. The roads and track are connected to the spline points on the assets in their appropriate places. If I recall, JR used the crossings, including the ATLS components by user BNSF50. These are by far the best looking of this genre for the North American region.

That said, clone the Mojave route as this will give you your own active route to play around with and then can make all the changes to it, including adding track, signals, and other stuff.

In Surveyor, you will see green + shaped assets on the tracks, as well as triangles, in orange with stripes, pointy arrow assets with stripes, a blue one sitting on a piece of invisible track (It's called this because it only appears in Surveyor and not Driver), a block on a crossing, and all the stuff connected together. These are the ATLS crossings. The video link I posted will help you set them up and configure them, and they do work and work well. :)

There are other things you might be interested in if you are going to try route building., but we'll start off with the easy stuff right now.

http://trains.0catch.com/tutorial.html

Here's some nicely explained stuff about track laying and signals. Ignore the statement about track direction affecting AI drivers. It does not and is an old misconception dating back to 2001 or so. Other than that this information is just as good now as it was then.

I hope this helps, and I'm sure others will dig in here too and help. You've only just begun... :)

John
 
Thanks John. I just want to get the EXISTING grade crossings working on the built-in route, Mojave. I have no interest in route building. The video link you showed me seems to have to do with adding new crossings from scratch and that is beyond my scope.

I have driven the built-in Scenario, Waylong Stall, grade crossings and everything work on that fine. Basically, I want Waylong Stall, with my OWN own rolling stock and without the mission task of helping a stalled train in this scenario.

How exactly is an existing route like Mojave Sub CLONED anyway?

The trouble with Trainz 12 is it has no minimization window so I get locked out of the rest of my PC when the program is running. This makes it hard to follow tutorials when the game is actually open and I am working on it unless I have another PC by my side.

I am getting the gist that TRAINZ is incomplete software.
 
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Thanks John. I just want to get the EXISTING grade crossings working on the built-in route, Mojave. I have no interest in route building. The video link you showed me seems to have to do with adding new crossings from scratch and that is beyond my scope.

I have driven the built-in Scenario, Waylong Stall, grade crossings and everything work on that fine. Basically, I want Waylong Stall, with my OWN own rolling stock and without the mission task of helping a stalled train in this scenario.

How exactly is an existing route like Mojave Sub CLONED anyway?

The trouble with Trainz 12 is it has no minimization window so I get locked out of the rest of my PC when the program is running. This makes it hard to follow tutorials when the game is actually open and I am working on it unless I have another PC by my side.

I am getting the gist that TRAINZ is incomplete software.

These older versions are far from incomplete as they have been in existence since 2001 at least. TS12 is based on the older technology and share much of it. Like any program, there is always bug fixing and improvements that have taken place, thus the big service pack you recently installed.

With a legacy like this, the program has around 370K-plus assets available for it on the DLS, not counting 3rd party sites, and some payware. The new version, on the other hand isn't quite finished and was just released a month ago. We can discuss this in another thread...

You can run TS12 in Windowed mode. :) When you start at the launcher, go to Options and Display Settings (tab) where you setup your display for Open/GL or DirectX and resolution. There's a checkbox there for fullscreen. Uncheck it. :)

I've gone one step beyond and have two displays setup so I can browse the web, like I am now, or use Google Earth (application) to measure heights and check details as I am route building and checking the forums. :D

To clone a built-in Route, highlight the route in the route list. Open it up and press CTRL-S. This will create your copy of your route under your User ID, and will be assigned its own KUID, which is a combination of your User ID plus the routes ID number. If you look at my signature, you'll see my UID. This is unique to me, just as yours is to you.

I just cloned the Mojave Sub to test it, and sure enough there are ATLS crossing in there. This means these components are built into Trainz. TS12. If you want to add in another crossing, you can choose a BNSF50 crossing, which is built-in.

How to show if something is built-in:

While in Surveyor, click on Main located up on the top part of your screen. Then click on Options. Under General Settings, there's a check box on the right hand side located in Advanced settings for content developers. Check Show object/track/train KUIDS in Surveyor.

Click on the check box and your settings will be saved.

Asset KUIDS are assigned colors in this mode and appear in the lower right corner. Yellow designates built-in or payware, red your own, blue downloaded or third-party.

Now you are looking for a decent built-in crossing. Again we will choose a BNSF50 crossing. I know there are some built-in and we can create a search filter just to find those and nothing else. Located next to the Main Menu are some icons. Click on the filter (looks like a tornado).

Above the space above Name, type in Grade xing US
Click on Name and scroll the list up until you see Built-in.
To the right of that in the other space, select True.

Now when you select the Scenery assets, you'll see a list of built-in grade crossings by BNSF50. I happened to use a lot of them so I remember how to spell them specifically. :)

Continued....
 
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Part 2 to avoid the 5k character limit.

Now with your new route, you may want to bring in the sessions from the built-in version so you can get to The Waylong Stall for yourself. This involves a bit of surgery in Content Manager.

Close Trainz and start again, and choose Manage Content, or do as I and others have done. create a short-cut to ContentManager.exe and put it on your desktop so you don't have to close Trainz to use CM. :)

In Content Manager we need to find the Mojave Sub route and sessions.

The screen is divided into sections, if you have explored you probably saw this already.

We need to do some searching using the filter.

Click on the tab at the top and choose Installed.
On the left side, slide up or open Search.
Click on the + to add more to this filter.
Click on the new category and change that to Built-in.
Make sure both are set to true.

You'll see a lot more....

Above Installed is a white space...

Type in Mojave and click apply.

You should see 7 items listed including the route.

Right-click on the route....
Choose View Route Sessions.

The display will sit for a second or so... then there will be a list of 32 total.

Click on View in Main List. This will display that window in an accessible format for you to manipulate.

You should see the built-in ones with the yellow PC icon. The rest are red-black DS icons for the DLS....

Highlight The Waylong Stall, if that's the one you want to put into your copy of the Mojave Sub.
Right-click and choose Clone.

The session is now open for editing....

(and we're almost done, seriously!)

Click on the top tab called My Content.

You will see anything you have saved or created under your user ID....

Note the KUID for the cloned route. The one you cloned in the Routes in TS12.

Now we perform surgery on the session.....

Right click on the open for edit session (it shows a hammer and wrench in black), and choose Edit in Explorer.

Windows explorer will open up....

Find the Config.txt file and double-click on it. It will open up in Notepad by default.

Located just under the description is:

map-kuid <kuid:487560:69000>

Change the bold item here to your map's kuid number. (The one you noted)

We will need to change this in the kuid-table below.....

Go down until you find

0 <kuid:487560:69000> and change this Kuid to your map kuid just like you did at the top.

Save the file, close notepad, and close the Explorer window.

With the open for edit route highlighted, press Ctrl-M to commit the asset. If all has gone well, there will be no errors displayed, and you have yourself your own session and copy of the route to play with.


Note: You could actually clone the route in Content Manager as well and saved a step above, however, I wanted to show you a bit about the Kuids in Surveyor and the filtering. :)

John
 
Thanks again, John, for all your time and trouble. When I bought Trainz 2012 a couple years ago I was not bargaining for all this complexity. I am the type of guy who likes things simple to operate "right out of the box" as they say. I am a "turn key" fellow.
 
To clone a built-in Route, highlight the route in the route list. Open it up and press CTRL-S. This will create your copy of your route under your User ID, and will be assigned its own KUID, which is a combination of your User ID plus the routes ID number. If you look at my signature, you'll see my UID. This is unique to me, just as yours is to you.

I opened this route up by clicking on Edit Route and hit Ctrl-S but nothing appeared to happen. How do I access my "cloned route"?

 
To clone a built-in Route, highlight the route in the route list. Open it up and press CTRL-S. This will create your copy of your route under your User ID, and will be assigned its own KUID, which is a combination of your User ID plus the routes ID number. If you look at my signature, you'll see my UID. This is unique to me, just as yours is to you.

I opened this route up by clicking on Edit Route and hit Ctrl-S but nothing appeared to happen. How do I access my "cloned route"?


Sorry... I was a step ahead or behind myself. We had some kids throwing firecrackers outside my window, which scared me out of my seat!

I should have said... when you exit back to the routes menu, you should now see your own version of the route listed.

Now to clarify a bit more....

In Content Manager, (part 2) you will see the route now with your user ID next to it.

If the route or session for some reason doesn't appear in Trainz, click on the star and see if it is not listed as a favorite. This can hide things you don't want to, or sometimes do want to see. :)

It can be complex as you want to make it. Once you start editing sessions, you move on to a whole new level even I haven't figured out completely yet. I too simply set up stuff and drive, don't bother to play with triggers, rules, tricks or anything else.

John
 
I made a short video of a couple preexisting grade crossings that are not working in the town of Tehachapi. I used FRAPS to capture this screen. I was in Surveyor to show all the funny objects with the weird colors and lines. What are all those dotted circles that rotate around things? Perhaps the video might show what is wrong or what is missing for the signals to not work. I suspect there is a software bug beyond the scope of the end user's knowledge to fix. I just submitted a trouble ticket with the Trainz help desk and maybe they can help me unravel this failed crossing mystery. It is nice to have a help desk tech with remote access to the client's PC to see what exactly is going on to troubleshoot things.

I can't just call NV3 Games up on the telephone for support either like I do when I am having trouble with my new air conditioner.

When Trainz clients submit tickets, I am hoping, it may help the software people on the 5th floor improve newer editions in the future. If something is amiss they have to know what's wrong in order to fix it in the first place. I paid $29.95 for my copy of Trainz 12 two years ago. I have enjoyed playing with it in the built-in Scenarios where I did not have to edit anything and all my crossing signals were going ding-ding as they should but the limited built-in rolling stock started to get boring.

It doesn't make sense to have to "re engineer" the whole layout in Surveyor just to add or subtract some stupid locos and rail cars.

The only 'triggers" I know best about are the ones you pull on guns to make them go BANG. Certainly, though, something has to TELL the crossing gate that there is a train coming in order for it to do its thing. In real railroads the train's wheels and axles complete a circuit along with the steel rails as some kind of electric "trigger". How PC trains "trigger" "virtual" crossing gates is beyond me. I did not learn these kinds of things in college. It would be nice to be able take a class in Trainz Surveyor 101 at my local community college.

It doesn't make any sense that crossing gates would be provided in built-in routes that don't work on purpose. Having crossing gates that do nothing when the train drives past them make the whole game play look stupid.

I used to be an auto mechanic by trade and that could be daunting technical work at times. I just graduated with a major in computer networking a year ago. Software engineering and scripting is not my forte. Unfortunately, there is no step-by-step manual that is comprehensive for Trainz to show end users everything it is capable of doing and how to do it.
 
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John!! I just stumbled on to this yootube toot and all my crossing troubles are now SOLVED!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u2gQSsdDI5Y

I found out that each grade crossing has all these silly objects: ATLS slave, controller, triggers, traffic stoppers and all of these "objects" on a CREATED route/session on Mojave are by default turned OFF!
Each one has to have the same channel number and other things set a certain way. I tried doing all this on my test route on particular crossing in Tehachapi, and voila, the crossing now works!

So, now I am going to have to do the laborious task of configuring each and every damn crossing gate on the entire Mojave with its own channel number by hand.

I do, however, thank God I am not a railroad laborer swinging a hammer in the hot sun!
 
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Jon,

Congratulations! :D

ATLS assets are odd. That's why I linked to the video I did. It shows the same stuff in a convoluted way...

Why you lost their setup is something I don't quite understand. I can't remember if this info is saved at the session level or route level. I understand if this is complex. As I said, you've only touched on the edge of a brand new world. :D

Triggers, blinking circles, spinning lines... Track marks, direction markers and more......

Triggers are cool little critters as they allow you to automate tasks in Trainz like having a switcher pull out of a siding and uncouple the cars from an incoming freight once the load engines uncouple and cross a specifically placed trigger on the way to the engine house. (Pretty cool and I sound like I know something... I've never set them up).

The spinning circles are the connection points on spline objects such as roads, track, fences, big sheets of grass, crops, and other things of that nature. For track, you want to ensure there are no breaks in them, should you create your own route and lay your own track. They turn yellow when the tracks are locked, and you do this by clicking on them with the height tool.

Track marks are nifty little things too as, these innocent little red triangle things, they allow you to direct the AI to taking a specific route, or perform other tasks such as uncoupling at specific points by using rules associated with them. I use them mostly for guiding AI as the drivers are dumb and take the most convoluted route, usually through the yard, instead of staying on the 60 mph mainline. By giving them a drive via track mark command, you can guide them along the proper path most of the time. I will mention a hint here: Don't be fancy with extra long names as they can get chopped off in the menu. (A long standing bug since the early days). Besides, it's awfully difficult to remember them if they're called something like Enfield Main Track East -- south side yard Track 1, when you have a list of Enfield Main Track Easts, Wests, south side yards. I found out that this basically confused me as the names were too similar. :)

Direction markers.... Those yellow triangle things. These work like do not enter signs and keep the AI on their proper tracks if you've setup single-direction running on double track. You'll see these all over the place on routes, and sometimes can be a bane too if they're placed in the wrong direction! You'll get a message that says Unable to plot route from an AI driver. You'll drive the track fine, but he won't be able to drive. Go to Surveyor and go over the route manually and you'll miss it because it's in the proper place, but facing the wrong direction. Once you find it though, life is good.

Anyway, there will be more to follow as I remember stuff and I'm glad you got things up and running. :)

John
 
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