The trouble with the "ATLS system" by boat.

[JonMyrlennBailey]

If one has ATLS-controlled grade crossings NEAR switches, yards and sidings one is going to have trouble. The ATLS triggers are OK only if rail traffic goes by the crossing forward without ever stopping and backing up. These ATLS triggers depend upon trains' hitting them in a certain sequence.

Stopping and backing over these triggers as within a block of switches tends to cause these gates to be stuck down as the trigger sequence is all screwed up.

What content developers should strive to create is a grade crossing system that relies solely with railway vehicles' being within a certain preset range of placed triggers much like the solid green triggers used with the Trigger Multiple Signals rule. That is crossing lights, gates and bells would only remain active while any train or part of a train is within the preset range of one or more triggers. Stopping, going forward or backing up would have no effect.

 

[stagecoach]

ATLS does work well near junctions and in yards, you just need to know the various ways to set them up to work for you. There is no sequence, trains need to pass a trigger twice for 2 trigger mode and four times for 4 trigger mode, in any direction. You also have the ATLS driver commands to match those triggers and can be used in place of a trigger. Triggers are also able to use the train priority setting to either activate or not. My setting is to place a leave trigger in the middle of the crossing and use driver commands to close the gate/barrier to traffic. Once train has passed the crossing trigger the gate will open, this means if the train stops on the trigger and reverses the gate will still open when the train leaves the trigger. Trains in my yard are set at priority 3 and any triggers except the leave trigger in or near the yard are set not to activate for priority 3 trains.

 

[MTH_ELECTRIC_TRAINS]

I have studied the ATLS system and figured out how it works. The first thing is that you do not need to have the triggers activated in a certain sequence. In fact, you are able to deactivate a "broken" crossing by just running a train through 1 of the triggers a couple of times till it deactivates. Another option is to just make some crossings manual or auto and manual. You can do this by placing an invisible train on the invisible track connected to the crossing and adding a switch in between the crossing and the train. How the ATLS Slave works is it just disables and enables the physics on the invisible train it has. This activates and deactivates the crossing. The invisible train's (the one you have in the trains menu) physics are always on so the switch is how you turn the crossing off for a manually operated crossing.

This honestly works perfectly, for me anyway. If you want a "better" system, try out the TRC system. You can find everything for it by just searching the internet for their website. I will say there is VERY LITTLE content for it

 

[RHKluckhohn]

Also, try atilabarut's My Level Crossing-3. It's a session rule combined with a trigger and invisible train. It's no harder to set up than ATLS but operates much more prototypically. There's only one trigger per track. It doesn't care if you start, stop or break the train in the active zone and can be set to keep the gate closed while standing.

Do not start a session with cars in the zone, but you can use my mod My Level crossing-3a for a release point just beyond the sidewalk if you are starting close to the crossing.

The only drawback is this version does not save its settings with the session and the crossings will not be controlled when you resume a session.

:B~)

 

[stagecoach]

MTH_ELECTRIC_TRAINS You are not correct in the way triggers work for ATLS. Each train sends its own details and only that train has to complete the cycle of 2 or 4 triggers. You can not use another consist to reset the crossing by trying to make up the number of passes over a trigger. The ATLS system in 4 trigger mode works like this, first trigger = activate, second trigger = ignore, third trigger = deactivate and forth trigger = ignore. It does not matter what order you pass a trigger, forwards or backwards, but it must equal 4. Only the engine that activated can deactivate the crossing.

 

[JonMyrlennBailey]

Anyway, I have made some changes on Jonstown Double 8, a two-track mainline figure-eight G-scale model layout.

I moved my ATLS grade crossing to the dirt trail crossing in the pine forest where the horse-drawn wagons cross the tracks on a dirt trail near a tunnel portal in place of the crossbucks that used to be there.

Now the only ATLS crossing on my layout is far away from the yard. It warns horse-drawn wagons and cowboys driving cattle with bells and flashing red lights and guards the crossing with gates as well. For realism, I placed a track-side relay box at that crossing as well. This cattle trail crossing is dangerously close to the tunnel portal anyway and this is on curved track with limited visibility in the tunnel direction. This is a 25 mph railroad zone. It is highly unlikely that any real American RR would go through the trouble and cost of maintaining electric grade crossing warning equipment in a remote area with only a dirt trail over the tracks UNLESS this were a particularly dangerous crossing as near a tunnel exit or a blind corner.


At the street crossing near my junction block (yard entrance, mainline crossover and customer siding), I now have just crossbucks with a flashing-red-light stop sign on each side. This is a no-traffic road anyway with static automobiles on it.

This way I won't have ATLS issues whenever I want to marshal trains from the yard to the main line or drop/hook customer box cars.

I still insist that grade crossings should work the same way as the Trigger Multiple Signals rule with the solid green triggers by only being active while any part of a train is within the triggers' preset range.