Version :6 Work In Progress

RHKluckhohn

Active member
  • First thing done was the safety items. The east whistle posts are back in South Amboy - replaced the old wood posts with new type - and the speed limit on the Metalcraft spur.
  • The mileposts were off by 2/10 mile. Ugh. However, they are now prototypically correct and the signals have been renumbered to match. That was one of the two most time-consuming jobs.
  • Converting crossings from ATLS to Attilacrossings was the other major job. Only those in shunting areas were addressed. That included (from Fond Du Lac south):
    • West Forest St in West Yard
    • West Pioneer Road in FDL
    • Rolling Meadows Drive
    • Willow Lawn Drive
    • Highland Ave (Brownsville)
    • South Ave Extension (Knowles - it's really just a driveway)
    • Horicon Street (Mayville)
    • 4th Street (..do..)
    • SR 67
    • Jones Rd at Limestone Country
Why West Forest, you ask? That was already an Attilacrossing, wasn't yet? Well, partly. The yard tracks were but the SOO crossing was self-contained because I hadn't figured out how to include it; the opening and closing radii were entirely different. Three days ago it occurred to me that two crossings might use the same controller. Bingo! So the SOO crossing with its gates is now on the same circuit but the trigger radii are appropriate to the train speed and it protects both the SOO and the yard. The west lights now protect all tracks. That meant the east yard lights could go. One very minor hitch is if a train in one system exits while there's another train present on the other side it pops a red bug. It does not affect operation at all; run with scripts off and you won't notice.

  • Working on Forest and Rolling Meadows, I realized how awful the connecting road layout looked so both have been rebuilt with AASHTO pavement and look quite nice. Rolling Meadows was an HP 2-track protected crossing and carz would leap over it, so out it came, replaced by ordinary track with plates. Train vehicles don't lump over it any more either.
  • Added an approach signal on the CNW at Willow Lawn for the MILW crossing. Can't get the Intermodal signal to display correctly, still red over green regardless of how the switch is set. Tried all the signals in my collection. Fiddled with the signals at West Jones and simplified it a bit.
  • Military Road whistle posts now have same radii. Problem solved. West Pioneer was missing its home whistle trigger for some reason, so added that and used it to trigger the crossing.
  • Trees: Replacing sore thumbs as I spot them, not many. All trees are now freeware. Replaced some spruces that had flaky LODs.
  • Removed an extraneous mile post at Iron Ridge and a stray Track Scanner that got left in the last revision.

Work proceeds on the existing T:ANE sessions. Replacing the old My Level Crossings rules with the current one and testing (and looking at trees). Mulling over what might be done on Morning Connection: The intro screen has been redone and the timetable corrected. Add gotchas for early departures? Speeding penalties? It's the introduction session and shouldn't be made too unfriendly. Maybe none of the above. Saturday AM Patrol has been ported over from 12 and is due for some attention.

[21 Jul 2020] Neglected to mention: One benefit of converting those ATLS xings to Atilaxings is the removal of beaucoup ATLS triggers, correctors and whatnot, producing a noticeable improvement in frame rate.

[22 Jul 2020] Testing Saturday AM Yard Job uncovered two additional crossings in need of conversion, both on the SOO: Grove Street (south of Goldencow) and Dixie Street (at Warehouse Specialists). Conversion successful, updated rule applied to previously updated sessions.

[25 Jul 2020] The seven existing sessions have all been updated and tested. The support file FDLHTML has been lightened (Morning Connection now has its own) and updated to 4.5; must remember to upload it first. Saturday AM Patrol is now in revision. The original is basically sound but crude and not friendly, it could serve as an orientation session with some additional messages - any messages, for that matter.

[28 Jul 2020] Discovered another way to foul an ATLS crossing: on a 4-trigger crossing let an AI driver cross the outer trigger, reverse (or in this case, forward) to the clear, delete the train. Thought I had all the possible shunting areas covered, but no. So, one more atilizing: the CNW crossing at W Pioneer Road. Testing the Saturday AM Patrol turned that one up. It tests good now, just want to run Friday AM West and Monday PM Odd Jobs once more each, then we should be ready for release.

[29 Jul 2020] All tests good. Uploaded the route and all T:ANE sessions at 23:30 PDT.
Creeping elegance department:

  • Tired of looking at the PUD truck and crew at the East Branch bridge, so moved them to a westbound day session.
  • The forklift/gabelstabler at Knowles has long irritated me so it has moved to its own layer to appear only 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. workdays.
  • No farmer leaves his cows out overnight, so all the cows have moved to a cow layer, to be visible say 6 a.m. to 6 p.m.
  • The floating gravel road in Downtown has been tacked down.
This concludes the COVID-19 update. I am thinking about porting over a night session from 12 next.

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