Hump yards

Hi Gents:

What I find interesting about this thread is no one has asked "what in heavens name could you do with an anti-retarder":hehe: .

I recently put a pair of items on the DLS to transfer coal from hoppers to one of Vulcans barges. I set them up so a loco pushes a string of full cars up a steep grade (6%) to the top where they are emptied, uncoupled and allowed to roll back down. The retarders were necessary as they came off the incline at close to 40 mph (far far faster then in real life).

Most facilities like that didn't use locos to push full cars up the incline. They used some form of pulley system that latched onto the cars and pulled them up an even steeper grade (10 to 20%). Much cheaper in men and material.

A good trainzer friend and I tried to figure out how to simulate the conveyor system but came to the conclusion it would require some really complex scripting (if it could be done at all). A little later I mentioned how nice the retarders were and he got the brilliant idea of an anti-retarder. If it could be done it (or a series of them) might be able to "push" the uncoupled full cars up the incline.

Crazy I know (but consider the source, lol).

Ben
 
We thought of that but the coupling and uncoupling present a problem. With the 2 items I put on the DLS, the loco pushes the cars up at no more then 2 MPH. You uncouple each one after it unloads. When it gets to the start of the down incline gravity takes over from there.

With the conveyor idea you would have to have the incomming track (at the bottom of the up incline) at a slight downgrade so the cars would slowly move into position to couple to the invisible loco. Since this would have to occur with each individual car you would need multiple locos. How do you get them back down?

I tried putting a length of track in a vertical loop and ran a loco around it. Since it would have to be a closed loop, the full cars would never couple to or uncouple from the invisible locos since they would be on different tracks (and if you want to see something weird, made a closed vertical loop of track and run a loco around it, lol).

Ben
 
Hi Gents:

What I find interesting about this thread is no one has asked "what in heavens name could you do with an anti-retarder":hehe: .


When it comes to your ideas, Ben, i never ask questions, im just waiting for something brilliant to show up in the forum, or at the DLS;)


Lars
 
We thought of that but the coupling and uncoupling present a problem. With the 2 items I put on the DLS, the loco pushes the cars up at no more then 2 MPH. You uncouple each one after it unloads. When it gets to the start of the down incline gravity takes over from there.

With the conveyor idea you would have to have the incomming track (at the bottom of the up incline) at a slight downgrade so the cars would slowly move into position to couple to the invisible loco. Since this would have to occur with each individual car you would need multiple locos. How do you get them back down?

I tried putting a length of track in a vertical loop and ran a loco around it. Since it would have to be a closed loop, the full cars would never couple to or uncouple from the invisible locos since they would be on different tracks (and if you want to see something weird, made a closed vertical loop of track and run a loco around it, lol).

Ben

Obviously, I didn't think it all the way through. Not all that unusual for me.:hehe:
 
I've always got ideas (its separating the sane ones from the insane ones that causes me problems:hehe:.

I don't really consider this one too far out in left field. Iron ore would be just as likely to be the product transferred as coal. Possibly grain too.

I would think such a device should be a short section of rail-only track (since it will be on a trestle) and be user programmable. By that I mean the downloader can set the amount of "push" given to each car for each different anti-retarder. The humpyard kit retarder allows a choice between slowing or stopping so setting a value might also be possible.

Ben
 
How do I get the Hump Yard Kit to work in TS2010? I click on the '?' and nothing is there. Somebody please help with this, Thanks.
 
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