Interactive Ballast Trains - An Idea...

[Dreadnought1]

Now there are a good lot of very nice ballast wagons/hoppers available but apart from taking ballast from quarry to stockpile, they may be a bit limited when it comes to usage but I had an idea...

If we had an ProtoLARS-style interactive asset that allowed a ballast train slowly rolling past to deposit "n" units of ballast from each wagon as it rolled past at say less than 3 Mph, you could incorporate a few of these into parts of the mainline to simulate ballast trains actually working the tracks. If it was possible to set a limit per wagon per unit of time (as PL assets do), you could set the unloader to unload only part of the wagon to enable more to be dumped at the next unloader(s) until the ballast drop in the section is finished. These unloaders need not be always on - they could just be incorporated into layouts and parameters set-up when required for a specific session with ballast/work trains.

Extending the thought, it may be possible to use a similar system for sleeper/tie/rail discharge for wagons carrying those products.

Thoughts/comments anyone?

Cheers,
Dreadnought1

 

[Ferrous]

It certainly is intriguing, if only I had the scripting know-how to try it out...

 

[Dreadnought1]

Maybe someone wise in the ways of scripting (or even just making interactive stuff) can have a think about this one.

I presume the concept shouldn't be too different from rolling-unloading (such as used for other bulk products like coal) except for the ability to only unload part of the load.

Cheers,
Dreadnought1

 

[AussieNightcrawler]

I presume the concept shouldn't be too different from rolling-unloading (such as used for other bulk products like coal) except for the ability to only unload part of the load.

Hi, That would be the problem, except for the ability to only unload part of the load, it would probably have to be done with a driver command as this is the thing that says unload or load everything...

If that makes sense...