Newbie--Cab Control Questions

[Steampower4884]

You haven't been around here long I take it. Start by looking in the Content Creation Support Forum, this question has been asked about a million times - or go to my site (http://www.44090digitalmodels.co.uk) and download the Blender tutorials - don't touch GMax (one of the other alternatives) with barge pole.

Paul

Nope! I just signed up this week. The funny thing is that I bought both Trainz AND Microsoft Train Simulator a while back...almost around the summer time. But other projects just prevented me from loading them on my system. Now it is mid winter and I began to think of that train layout again. Then I remembered that Trainz was basically a model of a model railroad and I did put two and two together and realized that I could make a mock up of what I propose to do for a real model layout within Trainz first. I would rather take the time and do it in Trainz because my greatest fear would be to put a ton of work into a layout and then finding out that the design wasn't 'fun'. Model trains is too expensive of a hobby to not to go this route.

However, the strangest thing that I have noticed is that I am having an enormous amount of fun just driving trains around within Trainz. I can easily see how this would help me with my real model railroad.

Anyway, thanx for the link, I will check it out later on.

Hello Geo,

Well, brakes on a train are definitly differend from what you do with your left foot in a car.:hehe:

Yeah, I found that out the hard way when I first went into Cab mode within Trainz without reading the manual first. I literally couldn't get the train to move! But I am not on my fifth day using Trainz and I kind of got the gist of it. I am not a pro at it by a long shot, but I am starting to use the Cab mode more now than the DCC mode.

For stopping a train at a desired spot on the track you would use brakes that are on every car and the engine itself. This is a hydrolic system most of the time that slowly builds up pressure. The anouncement initial brake is just an indication you're ready to do so. For a precise dose of pressure you go to the lap position (z-key) and then press the (a-key) application brake. As pressure builds up in the brake cylinder, press lap again and depending on the train length and type the pressure build up stops at a certain amount.

Oh, so THAT is how the lap works! So you have to 'application' the brakes first and then as the brakes apply, THEN 'lap' it. Darn it I was hitting lap the first thing out when I wanted to slow the train down and it didn't work. I bet THAT was a good laugh for you, huh?

Anyway, I did figure out how the dynamic brakes work and I manged to slow the engine down using that. But last night I encountered a diesel engine that didn't have dynamic brakes . Needless to say, I was all over the place with that one.

It takes practice to know how much application you must give before switching back to the lap position to get the right deacceleration needed. (same with steamlocomotives btw)

Well, I don't think I saw a 'lap' position on the steam locomotives, but what I have been doing is something like a dynamic brake in that if I am at slow speed, I hit the brake application first and then I slowly ease the reverser back past the neutral point. All the while the regulator remains near or at full. Thus I can stop a steam train pretty quickly that way. However, I am not sure if they did that protypically. But since learning the technique to keep the regulator open and just do most of the speed and direction changing using the reverser, I am pretty much catching up with steam to where I am with diesels.

Dynamic brakes are used when diesels are on a downward slope and are in fact a method to use the motors as braking power. This is something mainly available on diesel-electric driven engines allthough other types can have that too. To use those you have to first set the throttle to the zero position and then press a key to activate dynamic braking (you havo to look up that key in the user guide) and then thottle up again to apply the braking on the engine.

It is the 'C' key. When you hit that it puts the throttle indicator in red and then ramping up on the throttle slows the train down. I saw how this worked when I set a train on a route using the driver designation. Just for the heck of it, I rode in the cab and watched the controls moving around. So I learned a bit from that.

Finally the individual brake will, I think, only be used in shunting operations with an engine without coupled cars.

There really wasn't too much mention of the individual brake, but as of last night I discovered an engine that doesn't have dynamic brakes and I was tempted to try out the individual brake, but didn't

In trs2006 these options are available, but since I don't have 2004 I think this is something someone else maybe knows if it is possible with maybe some addons from the DLS.

Another question. Since I now now how to 'stoke up' a steam engine's fire box...what do you do if you have too much pressure? Is there a bleed off somewhere? I got overzealous last night with one engine and went considerably over 200psi. Since I started with that engine on 193psi, I figured I did something bad. At any rate, how do you know what IS the max psi for each engine?

Thanx,

Geo

 

[Jananton]

Hello Geo,

If you have too much pressure a safety valve will kick in. Obviously this is considered a waste as well, cause precious build up steam is vented needlessly. The psi value where this happens differs from engine to engine, and also depends highly on how correct the creator has entered the settings for this in the config.txt of his or hers creation. If you really want to find out the precise values you can find them in the associated enginespec of a certain engine by opening the CMP, right click on the engine spec asset and choose view config. (Don't know if this works the same in 2004 though)
Btw, if you look at the hud in cab mode for a steam engine and press the z-key you'll see the lap position is there as well...

Greetings from rainy Amsterdam,

Jan

 

[Steampower4884]

Hello Geo,

If you have too much pressure a safety valve will kick in. Obviously this is considered a waste as well, cause precious build up steam is vented needlessly. The psi value where this happens differs from engine to engine, and also depends highly on how correct the creator has entered the settings for this in the config.txt of his or hers creation. If you really want to find out the precise values you can find them in the associated enginespec of a certain engine by opening the CMP, right click on the engine spec asset and choose view config. (Don't know if this works the same in 2004 though)

Well, I figured that there would be some kind of pressure release valve otherwise there would be the spectacular boiler explosion animation. BTW, can that happen in Trainz? I seriously doubt the would go through the trouble and model that though.

I do like the fact that they modeled the steam consumption...but again, why not the diesels? Last night I had a good thing going with a fan created layout in a small space and I was running all steam engines only. It was pretty hectic trying to keep everything balanced out. I just about had all the steam engines in the railyard set up. But I was only able to keep track of 4 last night. JUST when I wanted to fire up the Big Boy (my on-line namesake)... BOOM! I forgot one switch and I had two trains meet and that took out the mainline. Too bad there isn't a 'rerail' option in Trains.

Anyway, I had a bunch of fun with that small layout and I am going to give it another go. What I am finding out is that you can pretty much keep yourself really busy with just 4 industries to cater too and perhaps running a passenger train (or two) with that.

So right off the bat Trainz is showing me that I DON'T need to model many industries. In fact just running two main commodities that feed off other smaller industries would be plenty. I certainly can shoe horn this into a small coffee table layout easily.

Naturally the bigger the layout (in Trainz) the more possibilities and the longer the runs.

But I ran for close to 4 hours last night on a very small layout that only had two commdities and 5 industries (including passenger terminals). NOT BAD! If I can pass 2 hours on a coffee table sized layout, then I know I will be good to go.

Btw, if you look at the hud in cab mode for a steam engine and press the z-key you'll see the lap position is there as well...

Greetings from rainy Amsterdam,

Jan

Really? No I didn't notice the lap position on the steam engine. But when it comes to steam, I found that I get a bit creative with the reverser lever. Once I get my regulator full and the cut-off low...I can play with the lever going slightly into forward and reverse to slow things down. If I need to stop fast I just engage the brakes and then ease into reverse...works beautifully. Now I am actually controlling steam engines better than diesels. I have noticed that the diesels have a considerable amount of coasting on them. You can run quite a bit of a distance with a full load and NO throttle (on grade or a slight downhill...uphill, then yeah you definitely need the throttle).

BTW, how can you view grades so this way you know how steep a hill is when you can come to it?

Thanx,

Geo

 

[Jananton]

Hello Geo,

BTW, how can you view grades so this way you know how steep a hill is when you can come to it?

There is a custom hud that can give you this information during the drive in either Cab or Dcc mode. Actually there're two:
mc Display Custom HUD - kuid:41009:1023 and
mc Display Custom HUD v2 - kuid2:61392:1070:1
both available from the DLS. You use them by adding either of those to the session of a route you want to display it in. (Use the Edit Session in the Main menu in Surveyor, press the Add button and pick one from the list.)
The first one looks like this and gives apart from the slope, or grade percentage, the setting of the next switch, upcoming required speed (not shown here) and signal setting.

For your convenience:hehe: note the Brake position, but maybe this is different in trs2004.

Greetings from sunny Amsterdam,

Jan

 

[Steampower4884]

Hello Geo,



There is a custom hud that can give you this information during the drive in either Cab or Dcc mode. Actually there're two:
mc Display Custom HUD - kuid:41009:1023 and
mc Display Custom HUD v2 - kuid2:61392:1070:1
both available from the DLS. You use them by adding either of those to the session of a route you want to display it in. (Use the Edit Session in the Main menu in Surveyor, press the Add button and pick one from the list.)
The first one looks like this and gives apart from the slope, or grade percentage, the setting of the next switch, upcoming required speed (not shown here) and signal setting.


For your convenience:hehe: note the Brake position, but maybe this is different in trs2004.

Greetings from sunny Amsterdam,

Jan

That's great! So all I have to do is get those kuid files from DLS and like everything else it puts them where they supposed to go?

Also I have noticed something else that is particularly bothersome when running steam engines. When you click on another car within the train's consist, the display reverts back to the indications that a diesel/electric train would have. That sounds like a bug if you ask me. Does everyone else have that issue?

Anyway, last night I was having a ball with a layout I downloaded from DLS:

http://www.auran.com/TRS2004/DLS_viewasset.php?AssetID=51222

There were some problems with the layout and I started to get my feet with some editing. The layout is a point to point, but I manged to find a way to extend one track around and back to the front of the layout so I have a loop.

The layout is mostly a coal/oil run, but there were some really bad turning curves used. I was running the Flying Scotsman with the Pullman coaches, and they looked horrible in the turns. Now I know what they mean by using too small a turn radii and having long coaches. So I fixed the main loop to have much broader curves and the long trains look good now.

Once I had everything fixed, I pretty much loaded up ever steam engine that was in the 2004 library and I made some runs up until the wee hours (3:30am) in the morning before I finally just got to tired and had a crash.

The next thing I would like to do is find out how to make proper curves so I could make a proper mock up of the n-scale layout I have planned.

Anyway, thanx for the info. I have a funny feeling Trainz is certainly going to get the lions share of my time for the next few months!

Geo

 

[Jananton]

Hello Geo,

That's great! So all I have to do is get those kuid files from DLS and like everything else it puts them where they supposed to go?

Yes, but after that you must put it in the rule list for your session as described before of course.

Also I have noticed something else that is particularly bothersome when running steam engines. When you click on another car within the train's consist, the display reverts back to the indications that a diesel/electric train would have. That sounds like a bug if you ask me. Does everyone else have that issue?

Hmm, never noticed that, must be a 2004 thing.

Anyway, last night I was having a ball with a layout I downloaded from DLS:

http://www.auran.com/TRS2004/DLS_viewasset.php?AssetID=51222

There were some problems with the layout and I started to get my feet with some editing. The layout is a point to point, but I manged to find a way to extend one track around and back to the front of the layout so I have a loop.

As soon as you go into those realms of trainz it's just a matter of time before you get hooked.:hehe:
Here is a link to a set of tracklaying and signalling tutorials that are a must read for the budding surveyor.

Anyway, thanx for the info. I have a funny feeling Trainz is certainly going to get the lions share of my time for the next few months!

Ok, don't say you wheren't warned...:hehe:

Greetings from rainy Amsterdam,

Jan

 

[Steampower4884]

Hello Geo,



Yes, but after that you must put it in the rule list for your session as described before of course.

Ok, I followed your directions, but it doesn't work. I get some kind of:

"Thread Exception Null Reference Stack Dump Error".

Any idea of the cause of the problem?

I will say though the first day I did downloads with DLS, everything worked fine, but the rest of the week I been having quite a bit of trouble with DLS. I did post a message about it though. So I don't know if the issue could be related to the error message.

Hmm, never noticed that, must be a 2004 thing.

If you have the steam loco selected, the display is fine, but if you click any of the cars in the consist, the display shows the functions as it it were a diesel train.

As soon as you go into those realms of trainz it's just a matter of time before you get hooked.:hehe:

Yeah, I know...I already lost quite a bit of sleep over it! You do get 'hooked' into doing one thing and then another. It's 3:00am and you are like, well, I just want to add that one more siding, or in Driver...lets go around with the shipments just ONE more time. But before you know it the one siding becomes a complete layout overhaul and the session goes WAY past that one more shipment

Here is a link to a set of tracklaying and signalling tutorials that are a must read for the budding surveyor.

Oh, thanx, that is great! I was going to look for something like that anyway. You did the work for me .

Ok, don't say you wheren't warned...:hehe:

Greetings from rainy Amsterdam,

Jan

Warned, yes, but prepared...no.

Well, off to another session and then I am going to check out that document you posted. There is still a problem with that layout I mentioned (the oil refinery stopped producing diesel fuel for some reason), so I want to see if I can fix it.

Thanx,

Geo

 

[Jananton]

Hello Geo,

Ok, I followed your directions, but it doesn't work. I get some kind of:

"Thread Exception Null Reference Stack Dump Error".

Any idea of the cause of the problem?

Yes, you're missing a dependancy you need to get as well from the DLS. I don't know how this works in 2004, but in 2006 you just drag the culprit to the download helper window of the CMP and it finds it for you to download. Both versions need one. From the error I make you're missing part of the actual script.

mc Driver Custom HUD needs <kuid:41009:1022>
mc Driver Custom HUD v2 needs <kuid2:61392:1069:3>

I will say though the first day I did downloads with DLS, everything worked fine, but the rest of the week I been having quite a bit of trouble with DLS. I did post a message about it though. So I don't know if the issue could be related to the error message.

This is an ongoing piece of grieve. Sometimes it works great and then for no aparent reason you can have trouble getting a good connection. We all learn to live with it I suppose...

If you have the steam loco selected, the display is fine, but if you click any of the cars in the consist, the display shows the functions as it it were a diesel train.

Forgot about that, I'll have a look at that later today.

Well, off to another session and then I am going to check out that document you posted. There is still a problem with that layout I mentioned (the oil refinery stopped producing diesel fuel for some reason), so I want to see if I can fix it.

Hmm, if it works the same as in 2006 and you have enough crude to refine, the reason you can't load diesel suddenly is that the tanks are filled up with either petrol or av-gas, or both, so diesel production stops until you load the other type(s) to make room again. I had the same at one time. However I cannot remember if only letting the refinery produce one kind of fuel, diesel in your case, remedied it.

Greetings from snowcovered Amsterdam,

Jan

 

[Steampower4884]

Hello Geo,



Yes, you're missing a dependancy you need to get as well from the DLS. I don't know how this works in 2004, but in 2006 you just drag the culprit to the download helper window of the CMP and it finds it for you to download. Both versions need one. From the error I make you're missing part of the actual script.

mc Driver Custom HUD needs <kuid:41009:1022>
mc Driver Custom HUD v2 needs <kuid2:61392:1069:3>

So I have 2004, how do I get the needed dependency to where it supposed to go.

This is an ongoing piece of grieve. Sometimes it works great and then for no aparent reason you can have trouble getting a good connection. We all learn to live with it I suppose...

That is a bummer considering it hasn't worked right for most of the week! But now you got me wondering on this dependency thing.

Hmm, if it works the same as in 2006 and you have enough crude to refine, the reason you can't load diesel suddenly is that the tanks are filled up with either petrol or av-gas, or both, so diesel production stops until you load the other type(s) to make room again. I had the same at one time. However I cannot remember if only letting the refinery produce one kind of fuel, diesel in your case, remedied it.

Hmmmm, I might have to make a separate post on that one. Perhaps I can go into the Surveyor and play round with that item and see what I can find.

Thanx,

Geo

 

[barn700]

for TRS2004 then the download will self install into TRS2004

If it comes from another site, or is emailed to you, simply double click on the CDP file, it will self install

 

[Jananton]

Hello Geo,

So I have 2004, how do I get the needed dependency to where it supposed to go.

Well, you just download it as any other asset for trs2004. You can find the dependancy for the first one here and that for the second here.
There's a sticky thread in the 2004 part of this forum about downloading locomotives, notorious for having many dependancies, so maybe you can find out there how to check for missing ones in trs2004.

In the mean time I've looked at the steam hud, but when I click on any other car in a steam pulled consist the hud never changes to anything else but steam. So, as said, must be a 2004 glich, sorry.

Greetings from snowcovered Amsterdam,

Jan

 

[Steampower4884]

Hello Geo,



Well, you just download it as any other asset for trs2004. You can find the dependancy for the first one here and that for the second here.
There's a sticky thread in the 2004 part of this forum about downloading locomotives, notorious for having many dependancies, so maybe you can find out there how to check for missing ones in trs2004.

Well, I will how I can make out as I been using the Download helper up to now and with that it generally puts things where they supposed to be and when it was working it was fine.

In the mean time I've looked at the steam hud, but when I click on any other car in a steam pulled consist the hud never changes to anything else but steam. So, as said, must be a 2004 glich, sorry.

Greetings from snowcovered Amsterdam,

Jan

You don't have to apologize...after all you didn't make the program. As far as I can remember though I think Trainz 2004 was the first year they offered steam. I don't think they had it in earlier versions. So it is possible that it was a glitch that was never fixed...or it would have been a difficult fix. The problem really lies in when I am backing up or coupling a long consist, then I would like to see my controls. I DO still see the speed as that isn't dependent on steam or diesel, but I am kind of operating in the dark in cases like that.

However, now that I do see some of the shortcomings with 2004 and I am willing to take a shot with 2006. The track laying guide you posted is great and it also applies to 2006 too so once I am done with the scenarios for 2004 I am going to install 2006 and see what happens. THEN I can also fix those dependency issues as well. It sounds like an easier fix with 2006 (no I didn't mean that to rhyme).

Thanx,

Geo