Portals puzzle

[4ndylloyd]

Hi all,

I have a problem with portals on my route. There are a total of three (all are the re-rail portals from the DLS) which have been set up to issue trains but one portal in particular fails to put the driver in the train so the train issued just follows the route currently set without following any of the commands that were assigned to it.

I have done the obvious things like making sure the the drivers allocated to trains in the 'problem' portal are not allocated to any other train, aswell as deleting and re-creating the portal, also changing to the built in portals in 06

Any suggestions please as this has got me baffled!!

Thanks Andy

 

[maggs]

Well done, you've found the "uncontrollable train" bug that the portals suffer from. This bug is present in the built-in portals and any that are derived from them (such as the rerail portals).

The cause of the bug is a timing problem with the portals that causes the portals to miss the train leaving the portal. This causes the train to remain under the control of the portal and therefore also locks up the portal.

The only workable solution open to you is to alter the make up of the train that is being issued by the portal. Typically, a train of around 30 vehicles that is predominately made up of short vehicles (less than 20ft in length) will cause this bug to occur. To work around the problem, in that case, you would either reduce the number of vehicles in the train to a level that works properly or change some of the vehicles to versions that are longer.

The alternative (if you must have that particular make up of train) is to investigate the rules that are available on the DLS. If I remember correctly, either the Central Portal Control (CPC) or UnPortal Rule can create a train at a trackmark without using a portal.

Chris

 

[4ndylloyd]

Hi Chris,

Thanks for taking the time to reply. The route that I am running is a UK steam branch line with short trains. There are a total of three of your portals on the route, one at either end and a minor branch line about in the middle. The Northern and minor branch line portals issue trains without a problem (one train competes a total of about 30 shunting moves before returning to be consumed and it works faultlessly. The Northern portal issues the same length and make up of train as the southern portal (which did perform without a problem until recently!).

I do have a habit of doing the unspeakable in TRS06 by using the 'undo' button in surveyor so maybe I have caused this portal problem myself?

Thanks for the advice though and for your content on the DLS. I will have a look at the two options that you have offered as solutions

Regards, Andy