Trains are only really drive with the engine on the lead?

[JCitron]

Okay maybe it's something I'm doing, but maybe not.

I setup two passenger trains that consist of a Metronorth P32, 6 Horizon cars, and a cab car at the end.

They are setup to run in opposite directions with plenty of passing sidings in between that are properly direction marked and signalled. The total driving time between the two points is over 50 minutes each way, so there's no way the two trains conflict and there's no delay waiting for junctions because of long double track sections with plenty of signalling.

The trains run between three cities with an intermediate stop in between.

One train starts at Sandy Point, track one, stops at Bristol track 2 (Southbound), North Bristol (Southbound), then quite a long ride, Plymouth track one. The train then runs to a track mark (EOT) and switches to Plymouth track 2 (Northbound), and then stops again at North Bristol (Northbound), Bristol (Track 1), and then Sandy Point Track 1 again.

The first train's counterpart runs the opposite way, making all of the northbound stops and eventually stops at Sandy Point track 2, and reverses the schedule to the one above.

There are few slow downs along the route except for an occasional junction change, and the average running speed is around 50mph with some sections as high as 65mph, and some as low as 20 due to a Wye curve in Bristol.

Both trains happen meet around North Bristol and Bristol where this is a lengthy stretch of double track anyway. At one point they both stop at the North Bristol station, and another time at Bristol.

What's interesting is there's no problem on the first run. The trains run fine locomotive forward, however when running backward with cab-car at the lead, the trains will randomly stop, go backwards and get lost. If I take control of a lost train that decided to go backwards and set it right, the train then skips stations and gets more confused.

Now what's even more interesting is I solved the problem by putting a locomotive on each end rather than run an engine and cab-car configuration.

Hmmm....Did this problem ever exist before and I never noticed it, or is this a new thing with TS2009 onwards.

John

 

[Inn]

John,

This has happened to me numerious times with magicland "Go" cars..

Anyways, what route is this? Can I merge it to my existing route.. Seems nice!

 

[Xengeance]

You may want to try adding a 'change direction' driver command in their schedules. Sometimes weird stuff happens with the AI if you try to run them in reverse without it.

 

[Mart1001]

John

Surely this is just a result of track direction ?

 

[JCitron]

Thank you all for the suggestions. I'll continue to play around with this as this has befuddled the befuddler here.

@Xengeance,

I try the change direction thing and see if this helps. I tried extra trackmarks to "drag" the trains along, but that didn't work. The drivers would pass the trackmark then return back to it. This of course messes up everything, and when the drivers get really confused, they start running signals too so that gets things even worse.

@Inn (David),

The route is my own, and it's not available because it's way too big to upload anywhere and there are too many custom objects in it. I'll post some pictures and maybe a movie of this section when I get a chance.

@Mart,

Supposedly this doesn't matter, but I'm beginning to wonder too about that as well. I use direction markers as noted to keep the trains on the right side of the double track, but this doesn't work on the single-track sections.

John

 

[Mart1001]

@Mart,

Supposedly this doesn't matter, but I'm beginning to wonder too about that as well. I use direction markers as noted to keep the trains on the right side of the double track, but this doesn't work on the single-track sections.

John

Yea John...as you know I'm pretty new to this but for the first couple of weeks into my new found hobby, I did nothing but experiment on two baseboards learning all the basics of signalling/building etc and the amount of times I had AI's that just point blank refused to flip a junction and use a section of track was amazing.
The best example of this is when you tell a train to just 'drive'. So often they would just stop at a junction and refuse to enter. Then I found out what track direction markers are for and I fixed alot of this although there were still some niggling problems.

Once I read a tutorial about track direction(the direction that you lay the track when building), I went over my track dropping direction markers on it and found so many of them would point the wrong direction. So I removed them and then went over all my track relaying it in the right direction and then I removed every track direction marker that I had previously laid to cure problems and when I ran my session, every AI drove beautifully without a problem.

So from what I understand...the natural direction of track has to have an impact and is why if ever I want a train to go from A-B from B-A, I always give it a turnaround loop to allow it to travel the correct way along the correct track no matter what....AI's are stupid and it's best to treat them as such.

In a nutshell....track does have direction and it does matter when it comes to AI's.

Mart.

 

[Xengeance]

So from what I understand...the natural direction of track has to have an impact and is why if ever I want a train to go from A-B from B-A, I always give it a turnaround loop to allow it to travel the correct way along the correct track no matter what....AI's are stupid and it's best to treat them as such.

In a nutshell....track does have direction and it does matter when it comes to AI's.

Mart.

You don't even know how right you are, lol! They call it 'artificial' intelligence for a reason; it does exactly what it says on the tin. :hehe:

JCitron, if you haven't already, you may want to take a look at the track laying tutorials over at http://trains.0catch.com/tutorial.html - more specifically parts 1, 4, 5, and 8 as those sections cover these situations somewhat and may shed some light on these particular problems for you.

 

[JCitron]

You don't even know how right you are, lol! They call it 'artificial' intelligence for a reason; it does exactly what it says on the tin. :hehe:

JCitron, if you haven't already, you may want to take a look at the track laying tutorials over at http://trains.0catch.com/tutorial.html - more specifically parts 1, 4, 5, and 8 as those sections cover these situations somewhat and may shed some light on these particular problems for you.

I've consulted the tutorials in the past. According to the gurus at Auran, there is no direction to the track, but I beg to differ with them on that as we've seen in the past and now.

My brother calls them the artfully non-intelligent. The 'bot characters in many simulations act not to differently than the drivers in Trainz.

I did solve the problem by using a change direction command. The driver now does what he's supposed to, so now I'm back to using a cab-car on one end and the locomotive on the other.

Thanks again for your suggestions. Take a look at my screen shots of this route.

John