What kind of unit is this?

Ferngren

Trainzer
Example in a config for a loadable traincar, say a Gondola;

load0
size 54300
initial count 0

Now what units are used for size ?? Does anyone know off-hand?

Read through the CCG until cross-eyed but couldn't find it...
 
The units actually depends on the type of product. For example: grain is in Kilograms, general goods usually a number from 1 to 7 or 8, Oil sometimes in litres - sometimes in kilograms.

General rule for "bulk" goods though is kilograms.

hope this helps

Brian
 
[...] General rule for "bulk" goods though is kilograms. [...]

Ack, not true! The size parameter for all bulk and liquid goods is actually given in litres (it describes the volume capacity of the car). For all other products (containers, passengers, etc), the size is the maximum number of individual instances of the product that can be carried (for example, a car whose product-queue for general goods has a size of 15 means that the car can carry a maximum of 15 "boxes" of general goods).


[...]Read through the CCG until cross-eyed but couldn't find it...

Unfortunately, the CCG doesn't explain that parameter much at all. :( On page 36 of the TRS2004 CCG some links are provided to download "Traincar Examples" and the PDF files included with those examples give a little more information about the size parameter, but in my case, at least, I didn't completely confirm the behavior of the size parameter until I read the description of products (starting on page 17), looked up the "mass" parameter of some of my favorite products, recorded what load weight was reported in-game when cars were loaded with those products, and worked through the math.

I think the TRS2006 CCG (in-progress but there are links to it in these forums) has a better description, but I don't have that with me on this computer right now.

- Madeline
 
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Ack, not true! The size parameter for all bulk and liquid goods is actually given in litres (it describes the volume capacity of the car). For all other products (containers, passengers, etc), the size is the maximum number of individual instances of the product that can be carried (for example, a car whose product-queue for general goods has a size of 15 means that the car can carry a maximum of 15 "boxes" of general goods).

????

Coal is a Bulk good, so is Woodchips. Why would they be measued in litres?
 
????

Coal is a Bulk good, so is Woodchips. Why would they be measued in litres?

I don't have a good answer to that -- methinks Auran would have to answer that one. Basically it's just how they wrote the game. :confused:

(Actually it does make some sense from a programming point of view -- it cuts down on the variety of special-case code they would have to write. The way they've done it, the maximum capacity for all products that are just a mass of material that fills a particular volume is given in litres (a convenient measurement of volume) and all products that consist of fairly large individual items (boxes of general goods, containers, etc) are specified by the number of individual items allowed. So just two cases they have to write code for and two cases that their users have to learn.)

- Madeline :)
 
Units

Hi Ferngren,

Yes bulk solids are measured in litres. I suspect this is because a litre is a constant unit of measurement which can be calculated with length x width x height. Bulk solids do have a variation in weight but bulk liquids are very close to equal with Kg.s I.E. 100 litres of water = 100 Kg.
There are some vehicles on the DLS (lars I think) which give a conversion from units(litres) to Kg.s When you Right click with the ? highlited you will see "max load xxxxxx units xxxx Kg."

Hope this helps,
Bill69
 
????

Coal is a Bulk good, so is Woodchips. Why would they be measued in litres?

Because you can't get a quart into a pint pot :)

It may not make sense immediately, but if you think it through it will. Weight and volume are inextricably linked when lading vessels of any type.

Crudely, the base of the metric system is a litre of pure water - which weighs one kilogram and measures (when configured as a cube) 100mm x 100mm x 100mm.

You can fill a vessel of that size with a kilogram of water but if you tried to fill it with a kilogram of (say) diesel oil - it would overflow. Diesel oil is lighter than water, so a kilogram of diesel oil takes up more room. But, you can fill the vessel with a litre of diesel oil because it will not overflow - but it will weigh less than a kilogram.

Now, if you were to tack a couple of axles and four wheels onto the vessel, each having a capacity, say, of 1.5 kilograms then the maximum gross laden weight would be 3 kilograms (we won't bother with safety margins or the weight of the vessel itself) - whilst you would be able to fill the vessel with a liquid to its volumetric capacity with ease, you would not be able to fill it to its maximum gross laden capacity as there are no liquids with a mass that is three times that of water (molten metals are not liquids and, strictly speaking, neither is mercury).

On the other hand, you could fill the vessel with lead shot to its gross laden weight with ease - though if you tried to fill it with lead shot to its volumetric capacity you would break the axles.
 
If you bothered to check the configs for the products that the railcars carry in these queues you'd see that you have to specify a mass density in kg/liters for bulk products. The mass of product carried is volume x mass density. Which makes a lot of sense - mass densities in one form or another are used in the real world for shipping bulk commodities - and it worked fine for Auran.

But then someone asked after we started using TRS2004 what keeps the cars from getting loaded over their weight limit if the density is too great. Of course nothing did so Lars set up his system that identifies a maximum-weight paramater (kgs) in the cars config so a custom industry script can calculate how much volume of a product to add and not overload the car.

Bob Pearson
 
There is one other thing to remember. 1 litre of pure water is equal to 1 kilogram - so remember if you have some thing that is heavier example coal 1 litre in volume is equal to more that 1 kilogram of coal. have a look at my hopper wagons on the dls and you will see it is less size in number than the weight the actual wagon will carry
 
heavier example coal 1 litre in volume is equal to more that 1 kilogram of coal.
Coal, Anthracite, solid 1506
Coal, Anthracite, broken 1105
Coal, Bituminous, solid 1346
Coal, Bituminous, broken 833
Water, pure 1000
Remember though that not all coal is heavier than water when broken:)
Have a look at this chart http://www.simetric.co.uk/si_materials.htm

This reminds me of a trick question, what is heavier a ton of lead or a ton of feathers:)

Regards

Phil
 
Thank you all for the answers and an interesting discussion. Litres make perfect sense for size or volume since commodyties specific weight are in kilograms/litre and kilograms/unit. (built ins, haven't tried LARS)

Thanks Phil for that link, it's really good to have.

About the trick question - I would say lead, if it lands on your foot...:D
 
If you open Surveyor, select a route and place a Loco and 1 IC 4Bay Hopper Loaded and then go to driver, a right mouse click on the hopper to view details will show it is loaded with 55750 liters of coal and that the loco has 112t in tow. How did it get 112 tonnes from 55750 liters?
If you look in the config.txt file of the coal commodity kuid you'll see that the mass tag is 0.86 (which means that coal has a density of 0.86 kg/l). The config.txt file of the Auran IC 4Bay Hopper Loaded has a mass of 65000 kg and is loaded with 55750 liters of coal. This amount of coal weighs 55750*0.86=47945 kg. Total weight of 1 loaded IC 4bay hopper is therefore 65000+47945=112945 kg. Divide this by 1000 kg per tonne to get 112.945 or 112t. Auran seems to round down or throw away fractions.:rolleyes:

Bob
 
you can also change the weight of a given cargo if you know which file to look in and change.

I think that Auran uses Units for it's loads and then uses the config to tell the physics engine what each unit weighs for a given cargo type.

can't post any examples at the moment, I'm in work.

regards

Harry
 
OK, where can I find information about conversions? I've been using online converters but from what I've read here, I'm not sure I trust them much now. For example, if you go to this site,
http://www.convert-me.com/en/convert/weight2volume
and choose "coal, anthracite, broken" then put in 55750 liter, it comes out as 61600 kg, different than the 47945 figure mentioned.
Also, I'm looking to convert some car data into lbs data to add to reskins which is why I need to convert info. Thanks.
 
Metric/English converstion units are:
Kilogram = 2.2 pounds
Liter liquid = 1.057 quarts
Dry liter = 61 cubic inches
Metric Tonne = 2200 pounds or 2.2 tons

As to the density of coal or any other commodity, in Trainz you should use the values that are listed in the commodities config.txt file. As stated above, coal (kuid:44179:60013) is quoted as 0.86 kg/l. Some of the others are:
Crude Oil 0.9
Diesel 0.83
Petrol fuel 0.7
Water 1
Woodchips 0.4

These are the values that Trainz uses in calculating the amount of metric tonnes in tow when you click on a consist and view details. Since Trainz does the calculating for you, you don't have to worry about commodity densities.

Bob
 
Metric/English converstion units are:
Kilogram = 2.2 pounds
Liter liquid = 1.057 quarts
Dry liter = 61 cubic inches
Metric Tonne = 2200 pounds or 2.2 tons

As to the density of coal or any other commodity, in Trainz you should use the values that are listed in the commodities config.txt file. As stated above, coal (kuid:44179:60013) is quoted as 0.86 kg/l. Some of the others are:
Crude Oil 0.9
Diesel 0.83
Petrol fuel 0.7
Water 1
Woodchips 0.4

These are the values that Trainz uses in calculating the amount of metric tonnes in tow when you click on a consist and view details. Since Trainz does the calculating for you, you don't have to worry about commodity densities.

Bob

The imperial Quart is 2 Imperial pints... which is well over a litre as a pint is 560+ml.

A metric ton is a damned sight lighter than the standard imperial ton.

No one uses imperial in this country except on speed limits for roads and railways. Order a pint of beer and you get 570ml-odd of beer.

But then again, I have to remember that our american friends have their own system of weights and measures...

regards

harry
 
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