Portals are wrecking my trains!

[lsigrandson]

In TRS2006: I've set up my own session using the Marias route. Part of my set up includes programming the portals to produce and accept trains. When I go to driver mode and start using the route, the portals are wrecking the accepted trains (that is, they're not making it all the way in and disappearing). I have the portals set to "Accept all trains" and I've made sure that none of the drivers are the dreaded Alistar. I discovered the wrecked trains about a half hour into my session. I looked at the current driver's list and imagine my surprize to see all automated drivers with a red exlamation point over them. One look at the one of the portals and what a mess. A train will make it about halfway into the portal and then it wrecks (locomotives and half the cars are suspended in air off the layout). Any ideas as to why this is happening?

 

[Mikeinva]

If I'm not mistaken Alister doesn't appear in the Marias pass approach route since I've run the route hundreds of times myself.The drivers for the wheat campaign are Lothor,Josef,Bald & Kenny(x3) so Alister doesn't appear unless you've added a new consist to the route.

As for the protals: I don't use them much if at all except for the routes that include them perhaps you can try running the routes as originally designed without any changes & see if the portals function correctly?TRS06 can be a real pain in the butt when you try to program things into the game because of the way the scripting is set up & you have to posess at least minimal programming skills in order to make use of these features,which I find absurd as most casual gamers simple don't posess such programming skills & end up messing up the installation as a result.

 

[fran1]

Use the Portal Basic and put a decent run of track past the portal end with a signal at the end of the track. Works for me with any driver.

 

[backyard]

Several notes to ponder...

I also have trouble with this using Portal Basic. I set up a route I'm building & everything ran fine for a while then all of a sudden I started missing trains set in that direction.

Usually if there is trouble like a missing junction lever, or track separation at a spline point or crossing, the AI Driver does not move...in this case the driver goes to, then wreaks.

All AI Drivers are exactly the same, using the same scripting. I am bothered that folks pick on Al Doussard, since he is now deceased.

I also cannot agree that anything should be restricted to a certain level of education simply because some people do no homework of their own.

But having said that, Marias is a great route!

 

[Capt_Haddock]

Check the orientation of the portals, the "portal basic" does have a back and a front and can behave as you describe if used the wrong way round.
I found that the easiest way to check the orientation is to put a normal Portal next to it (the one that looks like a tunnel , with a definite front and back) and use the rotate tool in surveyor to make it parallel with the "Portal Basic", if it is the correct way round both should show the same angle of rotation.

It would be so much easier if there was an arrow (visible only in Surveyor) to show the correct orientation.

None of the above will work if your route involves accessing the Portal from either end.

 

[norfolksouthern37]

dont they have the portal entry text over them?

i have also had other issues with the standrad tunnel portal, in that it is a hill, and sometimes a train will come out of it and stop, and roll backwards back into it. also one portal basic was too short and kept derailing the trains. i dont have any issues with the standard length portal with no tunnel.

 

[backyard]

Pivot Point...

The Portal Basic can only be rotated at one end. I always lay the portal exit opposite the end of the route.

 

[Jananton]

Hmm, since Marias Pass is a buildin route I don't know if this is the case here, but portals must be on a baseboard completely. If they're suspended in mid air, as I see sometimes, they won't function properly and can generate subtle to serious errors of all kinds.

Greetings from sunny Amsterdam,

Jan

 

[knight42]

Hmm, since Marias Pass is a buildin route I don't know if this is the case here, but portals must be on a baseboard completely. If they're suspended in mid air, as I see sometimes, they won't function properly and can generate subtle to serious errors of all kinds.

Greetings from sunny Amsterdam,

Jan

Yes, I've experienced this with a portal hanging off the edge of the world. My trains didn't derail, but they stopped partway into the tunnel and wouldn't disappear. Make sure the portal is fully on the map.

 

[fran1]

A simple solution to the last 2 posts would be to add a baseboard to the route and place track on it.

 

[Jananton]

A simple solution to the last 2 posts would be to add a baseboard to the route and place track on it.

Well, I actually thought my reply implied that.:hehe: But to be complete of course yes, that's what needs to be done in those cases.

Greetings from drizzly Amsterdam,

Jan

 

[danny5]

lsigrandson, Is this the only portal that you are having problem with ?
Do you have trains coming out of this portal ?
It might be that you are having a train enter just as one is about to leave.
What portal is it on the route ?
On that route all portals are hanging off the the end so i don't think that the problem.
Danny5

 

[norfolksouthern37]

Hmm, since Marias Pass is a buildin route I don't know if this is the case here, but portals must be on a baseboard completely. If they're suspended in mid air, as I see sometimes, they won't function properly and can generate subtle to serious errors of all kinds.

Greetings from sunny Amsterdam,

Jan

i dont usually place them on the baseboard. just the front and the rest sticks off into the open. i havnt had problems from this. what does it cause specifically?

 

[Jananton]

i dont usually place them on the baseboard. just the front and the rest sticks off into the open. i havnt had problems from this. what does it cause specifically?

Well, it varies, but most of the time either trainz fail just to resurface if set to do that after a given time, or AI settings fail after a few repetition runs. In more serious situations trains don't dissapear at all and just stop halfway the portal not able to be moved anymore because the driver did leave alone instead.:hehe: Note that in some situations all seems to work well, but as soon as one wants to do some automation with AI driven consists, portals start to behave unstable either directly, or after some time. I have only experience with trs2006 sp1, the Just Trains (english) version, so I can't speak for the miriad of other versions out there...

Greetings from nocturnal Amsterdam,

Jan

 

[Mikeinva]

Yes, I've experienced this with a portal hanging off the edge of the world. My trains didn't derail, but they stopped partway into the tunnel and wouldn't disappear. Make sure the portal is fully on the map.

Have you tried increasing speed manually just before entering the portal?That could be one of the problems right there.

Putting the portal entirely on the map(since it slopes downward) would just result in the far end sinking into the map & leaving a huge crater in the landscape....I had this happen while experimenting with the monorail track this afternoon & accidently lowering one end of the spline into the ground & had to use the undo command to delete the crater it produced even after deleting the offending piece of track.

 

[SuperFudd]

Crater??
I've never seen that.
Maybe I mis-understand?
Nah.

 

[backyard]

I done this too...

If the terrain is not perfectly flat, the portal will adapt to the different levels causing one end to be lower, usually the far end.

We all know you can't manipulate a portal with track attached...doing this can mess with the level(along with making you pee yourself ).

Changing the terrain height under the portal attached to track can also screw it up.

Make the portal sub-grade flat before you install the portal, align the portal, then attach the track, name the portal & configure it.

But I have done all these...today my Portal Basic worked O.K. at that particular location...one of twelve so far, the others never malfunctioned...go figure...it will be eventually removed pending continuing the mainline southward to Austell.

The thought of adding the portals on down as needed is a real buzz-killer when things like this happen...

It also went through a short issue of sending back maverick trains that have to be commandeered with a light engine to recover control of the emerging man. I hate when this happens too...

 

[stagecoach]

s far as Im aware only the entrance to the portal is effected by ground level, the rear of the portal will just hide beneath the ground. When placed and you rotate the pivot point should be the entrance point.

 

[lsigrandson]

Wow! Alot of good suggestions. I'll give them a try and see what happens.

My original goal was to set up a grain route where I could load grain from all over and travel to Shelby to unload. I set up two basic industries in Shelby to accept grain. I added the extra consists to create a traffic pattern and challenge. Everything worked up to a point, but suddenly I could not load or unload grain and the consists started wrecking.

When setting up my route, I entered it through Surveyor and modified it the way I wanted it to and did a "Save As". That way, I could set up my own consists with thier drivers, thus why I mentioned Alistar.

All portals used I used were basic.

My portals did hang out over the edge of the baseboard, so I'll try moving them and see what happens.

My portals did have "portal entry" text written over them

When I mentioned "programming" the portals, I meant to say "setting up" as I do not have a clue of what it takes to break into the game code and change/modify it. I'll leave that to you folks that know what their doing. When setting up a consist I had it enter the layout from one portal and drive to the other one (way on the other side), with no instructions in between. All consists seemed to behave normally while on the layout (obeying signals, etc.) but lost it when entering the portal they were supposed to. Could it be that they tried to stop while halfway thru and wrecked?

Thanks again for the info.

Mike

 

[stagecoach]

Are you using the same portal to receive and produce trains? This will cause problems at times, use different ones to produce consists and receive consists. If you need the consist to return then send it from one to the other.