To start with, I have searched the boards for help, and have found some, but nothing that answers my questions.
Whenever I place a crossing, I have problems with the tracks/road recognizing them. At first, I would just place a road to cross the tracks, plop a crossing over it, and nothing would happen.
Then I was reading here and found to place the crossing first, then line up the tracks to the splines (?) on the track ends of the crossing. This did get the tracks to line up properly. BUT, I tried the same with the roads and they will not connect to the road ends, only the track ends. I am not sure what crossing I am using, I just did a search in surveyor for "xing" and use a US crossing for it, 2lane 1track. I am using the sample track and using "road scripted"
Actually this is easy to fix, and not as bad as you think.
This is the process I've used for placing crossings since I used TRS2004.
1) Choose your grade crossing.
There are plenty up on the DLS and built into TS2009 and lower. The most highly recommended ones are those made by BNSF50. Look on the DLS for grade xing us. There are various configurations for single, doulble track, etc.
2) Choose a good road for your route. There are a whole slew of new roads up on the DLS by Maddy (The YARN roads), and the BNSF Roads. Both of these are far better than the default ones that float above the terrain. The YARN roads are quite thick with a nice profile to them so they can fill in over uneven terrain nicely.
3) Choose the place where you want to place your crossing and cut your tracks and road.
This can be a bit confusing as I explain this, so bare with me...
A) Take your selected crossing and align and rotate it so the track links line up where you want the tracks to cross. Once you've got this figured out, put the crossing off to the side.
B) Using the add spline-point tool, located under the Advanced drop-down part of the track-tools tab, Place two spline points seperated apart by an inch or so. Repeat this if you're putting in a multiple track crossing.
C) Cut the tracks by deleting this small segment.
Note: You might have to, and highly suggested to do so, move those track-ends away from each other on double-track areas because they will tend to connect.
D) Cut your road into two segments like you did with the track.
Again with the new crossings, it is necessary to use the new roads with these crossings. The reason is that the old roads float above the terrain and will actually do weird things with the crossings. They will take a nose dive into the ground and will block right over the tracks and the crossing. When this happens you need to replace the crossing because replacing the road type doesn't seem to fix this problem.
4) Move the grade crossing into place.
Remember you already determined your track alignment so get the crossing into place where you want it.
5) Reconnect the track(s).
Using the track move tool, slide the end of the track over to the crossing.
If you're using a new crossing, such as those by BNSF50, your track on the crossing will change to your current track.
6) Reconnect your road segments.
To test your connections while in Surveyor:
1) Place a signal on either side of the crossing a good distance away.
2) Place a piece of rolling stock such as locomotive.
The signals should change color as they recognize the presence of the train on the tracks. If for some reason the signals do not change, check your track connections.
A couple of notes:
If you're using the BNSF50 crossings, you can change their angle by rotating and holding the shift key. This will allow you to accomodate for uneven terrain.
The texture can also be changed on these crossings. Click on the ? button and the properties page has road and crossing texture options.
I hope this is useful. Others can add other information to this. I'm sure I may have missed something.
John
