Trouble with Signals

bisbeejim

New member
Hi,

I'm having difficulty understanding how to get the feather on the Queensland to operate. It seems it has a mind of its own and whether it goes on or not I can get it to go on is a hit and miss situation.

Any suggestions?

Jerry
 
Hi Jerry,

To get the feather to work properly you must have a home signal after the turnout and before the next turnout. If it is a crossover and there is no room for a trackside signal use an invisible signal.

Cheers,
Bill69
 
Tried that, didn't work, however...

Hopefully I understand you correctly. The test set up I used was two long open ended pieces of track connect by the one turn out. The signal with the feather was place between the engine and the turnout. This, of course, didn't make the feather illuminate. Non-feathered signals were placed on the other side of the turnout, but the feather would still not illuminate.

I got a hint the other day that the track (the "mainline") needed to be connected to itself, like the typical toy railroad layout. So I made an oval of track and placed in the feathered turnout to a spur of track (open ended spur of track). If I recall correctly the feather still would not illuminate. It wasn't until I connected the open-ended spur back onto the mainline that I saw the feather light up. FINALLY after about 40 hours of struggle, I saw some signs of success.

I appreciate hearing more of what you have to say on this. I'm relatively new to TRAINZ and still learning. I've not heard of invisible signals, and I'm still trying to figure our what triggers do. Plus there are more signals that seem to have no usefull function.
 
I got a hint the other day that the track (the "mainline") needed to be connected to itself, like the typical toy railroad layout.

Hi bisbeejim,

The above "hint" is rubbish. If this was so we would not be able to run prototypical end to end tracks. I have made up a small demo track which needs quite a few screenshots to explain, so rather than trying to post them here, send me an email with your email address and I will send them to you direct.

Cheers,
Bill69

p.s. I will also explain triggers with the same layout.

Bill
 
Hi BobbyB,

Yep no problem. Send me an email or a PM with your email address. I don't like posting email addresses on the forum you can end up with too much spam.

Cheers,
Bill69
 
Found the Signals Manual

I'm beginning to understand better the trainz system as a whole. I finally found the on-line manuals and read into it. I have to go back and look into the test systems again. I think the unlit feather had something to do with the way the track didn't have a safe passage for the train that was about to get deverted on to it.

My email is bisbeejim@hotmail.com

Also, I've been reading up on triggers. Really, for now all I want is a trigger that simply stops the engine (essentially stopping the train). Then waits for an input from me (the driver) to start again. However, there are other things I want to do with triggers, but that's down the road.
 
Hi bisbeejim,
First for the feather to light up, you must have a non-red aspect (yellow or green). The reason it did not work for you is probably because there was no track end device placed on the stub track. When you connected the stub back to the mainline the feather worked again. As stated before, the feather signal must only see one turnout before it sees the next signal.
The track end (buffer ?) is actually a signal.
Andyz
 
Found problem - solution applied - problem resolved

The problem was the placement of the lever. Sometimes I would reposition the track put the lever would not stay in its original position. The lever has to be at least between the signal and the forks of the turn out. Moved behind the fork points, even one notch, and the feather won't function. The signal will work normally, but the feather won't.

Thanks for your help. I may not have found the solution so quickly without it. My next issue is the use of the trigger, I want to have a trigger that will stop the engine. I think that's another topic.

Jerry :)
 
Better Explaination

I got to thinking about the way I explained the problem and solution with the signals and I decided I should be more accurate.

The lever to the turnout has to be between the signal and the segmented rotating circle that indicates where the turnout begins. If you look closely at the 3D graphic of the turnout it appears that the points of the turnout is located several ties beyond the rotating cirlce. So the better explaination is have the lever in between the rotating segmented cirlce and the signal.

Jerry
 
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