Stalled Loco (Breakdown?) - Trainz Classics

[Driver_Col]

An interesting experience! A diesel shunter was instructed to go to an Industry (built in kuid -3:10165), wait for 30 secs, and then go to an Engine Shed. In order to do this, it would have to access a quite busy branch line / station area. As this was part of a specific testing process, other trains were scheduled to deliberately interfere with this procedure.

The diesel shunter made it to the Industry, waited the 30 secs .... and stalled! Actually, his engine sound inferred that he was going places but the wheels told another story! Trying to take over manually (both by using Stop Train and then Abandon Schedule) was to no avail. Lots of noise but no movement! It is worthy of note that all necessary signals were in his favour at this time. As this was one part of a multiple test, and with other trains backing up due to the shunter getting his signals ............ what to do? Saving the Session and rebooting it made no difference however, I did have a suburban passenger train in the nearby station.

Much to the chagrin of the passengers, I took over that train and took it out down the line a short way so that I could uncouple the loco and manually drive it to the shunter (didn't want to stay coupled as the passengers might get concerned with where they were going, and being stuck in the apparent middle of nowhere was not unusual to them!). Having coupled up with the shunter, I pulled it along with great effort and noticed that the shunter's wheels were not even turning (presumably why the great effort). After about 10yds or so, the shunter starting turning its wheels and I was able to take it back to the loco shed with far less difficulty. After recoupling with the suburban carriages .......... the testing continued.

Why tell this story? My experience with Trainz has been very good so I am certainly not going to complain about this situation however, it sent a very clear message that where there are interactive industries, it might be prudent to always have another loco in the immediate area. If my suburban train had not been delayed by other trains, then the shunter breakdown would have had to wait for the next train which, in my case, would have been a coal train specifically destined for that particular industry (and he already had two goods trains lined up behind him!).

The whole experience was quite nostalgic as I can remember seeing a rather neglected and sad looking steam loco pulling a very dead quite new looking diesel loco on quite a number of occasions in the early 60's!

Finally, it would appear that the diesel shunter started turning its wheels as soon as it cleared the Industry track.



Colin.

 

[Kennilworth]

Hi Colin

It's been a long time since I used TC3 but I seem to remember that there was a problem with trains stalling on industries which were aligned with the grid i.e. at 0, 90, 180, 270 dgrees. IIRC the solution was to move the industry by 0.1 of a degree. However I don't know if the patch for TC3 was supposed to cure this bug. Depending on how your station is aligned it may be this bug that is causing your problem

Regards

Brian

 

[sawyer811]

jeez, what'd you load the train with, cinderblocks?:hehe: :hehe:

 

[Driver_Col]

Hi Colin

It's been a long time since I used TC3 but I seem to remember that there was a problem with trains stalling on industries which were aligned with the grid i.e. at 0, 90, 180, 270 dgrees. IIRC the solution was to move the industry by 0.1 of a degree. However I don't know if the patch for TC3 was supposed to cure this bug. Depending on how your station is aligned it may be this bug that is causing your problem

Regards

Brian

Thx Brian : I had forgotten about that little "adjustment".

:wave:
Colin.

 

[Driver_Col]

jeez, what'd you load the train with, cinderblocks?:hehe: :hehe:

No. Actually, the diesel shunter was running light at that time. but there was an impending strike due to a total breakdown in contract talks. The driver was clearly wondering about how he was going to handle his family's expenses on strike pay while maintaining his regular pub visits. He knew his wife could not go to work because then there would be nobody to prepare his meals, and as for sending the kids out to work???????? Two adolescents totally preoccupied with themselves were not going to be much help. He would quite simply have to cut down on his wife's housekeeping allowance and "moonlight" for beer money. Given that our driver clearly had the weight of the world on his shoulders, I think he just totally screwed up in the siding.

:wave:

Colin.

 

[honeymonster1971]

Time for the old Eng.Spec mod trick

Col, You don't state which shunter you was using but was it made for TC3 or an earlier version?

If it was made for a version prior to TC3 you need to modify the Eng.Spec, Find the part of the config that looks like this:

motor
{
  resistance                             1.7
  adhesion                              5
  maxvoltage                            600
  maxspeed                              5.6
  brakeratio                            60000
  max-accel                             [B][COLOR=red]7000[/COLOR][/B]
  max-decel                             [B][COLOR=red]10000[/COLOR][/B]
  axle-count                            2
  surface-area                          80
  moving-friction-coefficient           0.03
  air-drag-coefficient                  0.00017
}

and Multiply the bold numbers by four, So in this case they would look like this after:

motor
{
  resistance                            1.7
  adhesion                              5
  maxvoltage                            600
  maxspeed                              5.6
  brakeratio                            60000
  max-accel                             [B][COLOR=red]28000[/COLOR][/B]
  max-decel                             [B][COLOR=red]40000[/COLOR][/B]
  axle-count                            2
  surface-area                          80
  moving-friction-coefficient           0.03
  air-drag-coefficient                  0.00017
}

This mod was covered on the old UKTrainz forum by was lost when it was shutdown (and I understand why it was closed after the Database went Ka-Plooey)

HTH
Andi