The West Forest Avenue crossing of the West Yard has been bugging me. Yesterday I tried a new approach, creating a second crossing of just the yard tracks with My Level Crossings-3 according to the directions while letting the SOO run on its own as is. Once again, it was all too close and the crossing was activated by cars standing at the adjacent industries and interchanges. Ripped it all out, then had the thought of modifying the My Level Crossings rule to take the minimum clearance down to 6 meters (~20 ft, or half a car length.) So I did that today; it brings the clearance radius down to the edge of pavement, the crossing is quiet when the cars are standing and it works great during movements.
Is this going to be available? Atilabarut's email account as listed is defunct. He's never answered my PMs and has no apparent posts up. [FONT="]I've put a post in the General Trainz forum asking his permission to upload. [/FONT]If there's no response to the post in a week or two, I'll try uploading the mod, which is a clone called My Level Crossings-4 and see what happens.[FONT="] Is he still alive?[/FONT]
:11 won't be released with the crossing unless the rule mod can be available on the DLC. There's no need to stop using -3, the clone does not obsolete it and they seem to work just fine simultaneously, so no need to re-enter all the parameters. Eliminating the W Forest crossing, if need be, will be simple.
The only other significant change is the Land O'Lakes door numbers, which I got backward - 1 is the east door, not the west. Apart from that there are a variety of cosmetic tinkerings and I've been playing with the crossing bells' and gates' timing -- creeping perfectionism.
Oh, and this week I finally managed to get some decent screenshots put up in the Forum.
Added left-hand whistle posts at the crossings. My fireman often failed to call them out while running long-hood first. Wish the GP-9 rear headlight operated in manual control...
Completed testing all existing sessions. Gonna turn the bells off at Breckenridge street when switching Mayville; this is a session setting so through runs can be left as-is.
The West Forest Avenue atilacrossing works as desired with the -4 mods. He has not yet responded to my post. If no reply by this time next week, up it goes. No further releases until then.
Time to build the Wednesday night yard job and move on to Thursday, and to Friday day work. That will complete the cycle.
Adjusted the clearing radius of My Level Crossing-4 to 8 M instead of 6. Covers the sidewalks.
South Hickory Street (just east of Goldencow) now is an atilacrossing.
Breckenridge St. in Mayville: moved to MLC-4, put the triggers on the crossing. Trigger=75 M, clearing 8 M, standing trains keep it flashing.
Superior St (FDL) now has a traffic stopper tied into the Military Rd crossing.
Poplar St (FDL) crossing replaced by one with flashers. Self-contained.
Jones: the truck crossing track 2 is now protected. Replaced a section of BNSF50's invisible road with a chunk of Auran ditto. We may see occasional traffic there.
Iron Ridge: slightly adjusted the alignment west of the branch switch to give a straight run through the frog. Hope that doesn't derail anybody's consist, apologies if it does.
Iron Ridge main now has priority 2 trackmarks on track 1 so through AI trains don't wander down track 2 as they have been.
Found a couple of nice rocky grass textures and have touched up intermittent stretches of the line. Also covered up the "Schoetter" texture in Downtown and Land O'Lakes. It looked good in 2009 but turned really ugly in 12.
Went through the existing sessions and rationalized the atilacrossing parameters so they should all work the same; set junction arrows/labels to 50% normal size on all.
Put whistle posts back on the Goldencow driveway. A visiting sometime loco engineer who took a test drive was careful to blow for even the private driveways.
Atila did not specify any restrictions or copyright in My Level Crossings, so I think it will be OK to put my version up when I do.
Yestereday moved the SOO signal at the east end of the West Yard east a ways so as not to confuse AI shunting moves at the interchange. Replaced the signal so it shows the correct diverging indication.
Took a run east from FDL today, 10 loads and caboose behind a 2-8-2. You do see more hanging out the cab window of a steamer than from a diesel, if you can keep the soot out of your eyes.
Found an extraneous whistle post and an excess Sound Horn in front of the Brownsville depot and excised them.
Reviewed the SOO signalling and revised with appropriate signals. Gained earlier release of the EB CNW crossing signal by moving the ASB corrector further west and extending its radius. Placed a dwarf signal at the east (SOO) end of the LOL yard, which is CTC country, and an invisible signal at the west (CNW) end, which is not, making the SOO EB signals indicate correctly. AI drivers should now enter LOL without qualms. The WHS switch is now properly protected too. Did some cosmetic work in that area. I think it's done.
Uploaded My Level Crossings-3a yesterday with the 8 M clearing radius, waiting for Auran approval.
Yeah, the route is done. Every time I "improve" something, something else gets broken. Hitting the point of diminishing returns here. More could be done in T:ANE, I'm sure -- the day vs. night activities along the line need an easy way to use layers in the sessions, f'rinstance I'd like to move the Knowles forklift into daytime sessions only, and all the parking lots should reflect the workday, but that's getting real artistic.
Still want to do some tuning on the S 11th St crossing at Agri-Land. It triggers at 100 meters and that seems too close. I think 150 would be better. That has to be tested with the sessions where Agri-Land is switched.
Other than that, Wednesday is done and it's time to move on to Thursday.
Moved the Brenner switch points east to make a better curve through the switch.
Revised the signalling at the freeway bridge to indicate correctly.
Revised the signalling at the Intermodal switch and relocated the 25 sign so as to not block the engineer's view of the switch on approach.
Reinstalled whistle posts to protect several farm and industrial crossings.
Relaid Highway 26 in YARN for better appearance and traffic behaviour.
Set the ..do.. crossing gates to 2 cycles-before-closing as trains were getting too close before the gates came down.
Adjusted terrain height at several points along the line to eliminate gaposis.
I'm calling it "done," although I'm less than thrilled with the way a lot of the vegetation looks. Much effort went into improving that in 2009 but much of that was undone by the move to 12. Guess you can't have everything.
