Road that is also track and supports trackside objects

[Retro00064]

Earlier, I thought up the idea: What would happen if I change the "istrack" line in a road's config.txt file from "0" to "1", while also leaving the "isroad" field at "1"?

Well, I tried it, and the results are shocking and creepy. :-D

Everything works as usual as far as road goes, except that the road is now also a track and supports trains and trackside objects (including junction levers)!

What is really creepy and cool, is that you can place a junction lever at a road junction and control which way the carz turn!!

See below:

In that above screenie, the junction lever on the road-track is set to where the carz will turn right (toward the bottom-left corner of the screen), and as you can see, the blue car really did turn right!

Because the road splines are now also track splines, and therefore are found in the Tracks tab, you can alco connect standard railway track to them, and the cars drive on them! See below:

All Trainz splines that have the line "isroad 1" in the config.txt file are interchangable with each other (which is what allows you to connect two different road splines together). Thus, as seen in the below screenshot, you can connect standard road to the road-track, and the cars drive along both seamlessly! In the below screenshot, the asphalt road is the "road-track", and the concrete road is a standard non-railway-track Trainz road spline:

I also wondered whether the AJS Traffic Controller asset (the thing that controls the AJS traffic-light intersections) could be used with such a setup to automatically control which direction the carz will turn, and it can! However, the Traffic Controller must be made part of the road spline in order to work properly. See the below screenshot. The carz really did turn according to which direction the junction lever was set to, which was changed automatically by the Traffic Controller! Now all we need is to get rid of that tree that is part of the Traffic Controller, and shorten the TC's length (if possible).

As said above, the "road-track" supports all of the regular trackside objects, including junction levers (as seen above), speed signs, signals, etc. However, I tested it, and the carz do not respond to the speed signs (bummer! :'() nor the signals (of course). See below:

And here is one last screenshot, showing a speed-sign on the asphalt "road-track", and a section of "regular" road connected to it. While the "regular" roads will connect to the "road-track", and the cars drive between the two seamlessly, the trackside objects can not be placed on the "regular" roads (unlike the "road-track"), and any trains you would be driving probably would derail the moment they reached the "regular" road: ;-)

And all of this was experimented on in the ancient TRS2004! Who knows, it may make nice drivable roads with traffic possible.

This was a weird discovery, so I though I would share it.

Regards.

 

[StorkNest]

Cars would not respond to signals because they are not configured as locomotives, if one was, I am sure the results would be different. Same with speedsigns.
Speedsigns show up where the do because of how they are configured.

 

[JCitron]

[This is pretty cool, Retro!

I could see this used with rails embedded in the road, even if they're for scenery only, for street running or light rail service. It would be a lot easier than trying to embed rails-only track into existing roads because the track is usually too high and you have to keep fiddling with the height of the track and the road surface to make them look right.

John

 

[Retro00064]

I have converted all of the AJS Traffic road splines to use the "istrack 1" format demonstrated above, and I have also removed the tree attachment from the AJS Traffic Controller (P.S. I updated to the latest version of the Traffic Controller last night). In this manner, road laying is easier, as I can simply place an invisible and silent junction lever and set it to whatever way I want the carz to turn. Used with the AJS Traffic Controller, I can set up (and tried it out myself) intersections where the direction that the carz turn is nearly random. It is almost surprising that no one has thought about it and it haing become well-known before. All we need now is an asset similar to the Traffic Controller, but minus the invisible train, and that is much shorter, so that the flexibility of realistic random-turning intersections is sky high. And remember, this is all possible in TRS2004, so users of most versions of Trainz can probably enjoy this hidden feature.

Regards.

 

[rweber95]

This also works in TS2010. Just remember these altered roads are now found as track objects instead of as Spline objects like the regular roads are. I tried one of these modified 'road tracks' and placed the built-in driveable Daimler CW Single Deck Bus,<kuid2:122285:605:3>. The bus drives down the center of the a 2 lane road with cars going back and forth on both sides of him.

Bob

 

[paulzmay]

That is very interesting. The ability to switch carz is a huge benefit. Bear in mind that you can use an AJS controller with a Junction Link (by mizi) so as to remotely control a lever without having to put the controller (tree and all) into the road. The tree is also only an attachment, so you could remove it in the config file.

Traffic speed can be set in the individual road spline for TC1&2 upwards.

Paul

 

[Retro00064]

That is one thing that I forgot to mention , that any trains that you put on the "road-tracks" will drive down the center. I might experiment with a double-track (bridge) set to "isroad 1", and see if the invisible or tram tracks are in the road lanes, while the carz stay in the road lanes.

Glad to hear that it works in TS2010 also. I knew that the traffic system in TS2010 is a little different (with the carz being defined as trackside objects, instead of scenery objects), so I did not know for sure if it would work in there.

As for that "Junction Link" thingy, hmm--I might have to go and try that one out! Thanks for the suggestion, Paul!

Regards.

 

[Ronayne]

I think you have stumbled across something big, Retro!

 

[stagecoach]

Have you tried it with the ATLS assets? as these could control both the track and road traffic making the signals work for both at the same time.

 

[StorkNest]

If you want drivable cars on the proper sides instead of the center, I figure you would have to make a single lane for 1 track then configure a 2 track version for two lanes, etc. You could go up to the 5 track maximum for five lanes, nothing bigger than that.

Now hypothetically, the main problem will be the driver list. Figure you put 30 drivable cars on these new Road Tracks, that is 30 drivers in your list and you have not set up one train yet. Add in some trains then try finding your drivers on your list.

Using regular traffic, you may run into the problem where the carz drive through the trains like they do on some crossings, first they wait but after some time they drive through the train despite the signals.

 

[Retro00064]

I suppose that it is time to give some warnings about using "road-tracks", so...

Warning: Do not place the AJS Traffic Controller as a part of the road spline when trying to set up automatically-switching road junctions (as mentioned in my opening post). Doing so may seem all right in Surveyor, but once you are in Driver, it will kill your frame rates, to the point of even bringing them down to one frame or less per second!!! You should instead place the Traffic Controller by itself next to the road, with its own junction, then use the Junction Link mentioned above by Paul to make the junction on the road switch automatically. This actually works better than the other way, as the turn directions will be very truely random, instead of pausing when the car drives on to the Controller, and it does not kill your frame rates in Driver--every thing works just fine.

Also, one more Warning: Be very careful when connecting the "road-track" to a level crossing (such as the ATLS Traffic Stopper, etc., or any other level crossing), because since the road is now also a track spline, it can be connected to regular railway track (such as that on a level crossing object), so if you accedentially connect the "road-track" to the railway track connectors on the level crossing, instead of the road connectors, and then you try to delete the level crossing, Trainz will likely crash! (It did for me. )

Otherwise, it should work quite well. It is real nice that this works as far back as TRS2004, and maybe even earlier, as therefore we do not have to petition Auran/N3V Games to add it in to the next version of Trainz! :hehe:

Regards.