Ladder Yards in Trainz

Hi All,

First I must state I do not wish to rubbish someone els's work here, but I feel I must make a statement about the construction of turnouts and ladder yards in Trainz.

The first picture here is what I would call a gross over use of spline points.





Author has gone to extreme trouble to get this ladder yard smooth but as the second picture points out this is not necessary.




This second pic is the other end of the same yard which I have redone the way I always do ladder yards.
The first ruler is there to keep the entry track straight. The second ruler is to place the first spline point on each track which is where the track is straightened.
These two rulers are parallel although they do not appear to be in the picture. This second ruler can also be used to line up your exit signals and trackmarks.
This way takes a lot less work and to me, it looks a lot better in surveyor.

Any Comments welcomed.

Cheers,
Bill69

There are some very good ladder guides on the DLS, made by Stationmistress. They are a bit complicated at first, but create a very neat yard once you get the hang of it.
I like your idea though Bill, thanks for sharing.
cheers,
Mike

I used to make my own ladders but found keeping things straight was a bind. I therefore designed and made a set of guides so anyone as klutzy doing turnouts and yards as me could make a decent job. The reason for all the spline points is to get the junctions aligned properly. If I remember right, the instructions say that certain spline points can be removed before deleting the guide. Once the guide is deleted and track straightened, some spline points can be removed. With practice as others these points will be recognized.
By the sounds of it, you've never made a template before or looked at other guides. There is at least two more yard guides on the DLS and they work in almost the same way.Once a track has been joined to piece of a fixed track, which is what a guide is, another cannot be joined to make a junction.
My turnouts were made for american, UK and european in various degrees of turnout in one eay go. They consist of 7, 12 and 22 degrees of turnout depending on preference. Making a yard was a pain originally, so spending time on guides was to me, and by the sounds of it, others well worth it.
I'm done.

It's really not that hard to lay your own yard ladders.

The first switch leaving the mainline is oftentimes troublesome, as it is a R into a L, or vice versa.

The track geometry is pretty easy to understand ... almost all turnouts require a straight lead in ... and a curved track usually begins right where the frog is.

I have found that placing a spline point by the "insert spline point" button is highly inaccurate.

I lay a temporary track, to where the spline point should be placed (right after the frog, then delete the temporary track, which leaves a spline point circle, with precision placement.

Wiggling a temporary track around in a full circle, shows you what track is not straightened, and what tracks need straightening.

http://forums.auran.com/trainz/show...enger-Car-track-splines&p=1327696#post1327696

As we can see from these comments there are quite a few different ways to lay a nice ladder yard. Everyone thinks their way is the easiest, well that's natural, it's the way you use all the time. As we all know there are many activities, from simple tasks to extreme sports where you can say practice, practice, practice makes perfect and Trainz is just the same.

Cheers,
Bill69

This is interesting and thank you, Bill for pointing this out. I've made yards using both lots of spline points a fewer and have had similar results. After seeing some yards a month ago in Western Mass., I found it isn't necessary to keep them as neat and smooth as we have them in Trainz.



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John

But how did they capture the essence of my route in real life?:hehe:

MeowRailroad said:

But how did they capture the essence of my route in real life?:hehe:

Click to expand...

I thought I posted mine.

John

Hi John,

I would think the yard in your pics is suffering from private ownership lack of maintenance.
In New Zealand when the railways were run under government ownership the yards were always tidy and smooth but alas after years of private ownership they are more like your pics now. In fact the whole trackage system was run down to an alarming extent under private ownership in this country.

Cheers,
Bill

Bill69 said:

Hi John,

I would think the yard in your pics is suffering from private ownership lack of maintenance.
In New Zealand when the railways were run under government ownership the yards were always tidy and smooth but alas after years of private ownership they are more like your pics now. In fact the whole trackage system was run down to an alarming extent under private ownership in this country.

Cheers,
Bill

Click to expand...

Spot on, Bill. It sounds like the same group of bankers is running your railway system too.

This was once the Boston and Maine Railroad which boasted a 70 mph mainline and one of the easiest smoothest grades west to New York with double-track mainlines all the way too. In 1982, after coming out of bankruptcy very successfully, Timothy Mellon purchased the B&M, Maine Central, and Delaware and Hudson. His Guilford Transportation was formed with partner David Fink Sr. They immediately set about a program of deferred maintenance, busted unions, and ran the system to the ground. Today, this line, all the way to Mechanicville, New York, is single tracked with a couple of long passing sidings. By 2008 the line was down to less than 20 mph in most areas, and the slow orders were pretty much the norm. After teaming up with Norfolk and Southern with the Pan Am Southern, NS put $40 Million or more into bringing the mainline up to speed again. Today, the speed is about 20 mph in many places, and the slow orders are the norm again! Pan Am Railways is still the same company with a different name; nothing has changed with them sadly. I wonder what NS management thinks now after all the money they put into upgrading this line!

John

But where did they come up with Guilford Transportation from? I wonder how much money they "save" by not fixing it compared to lost money due to wrecks, lost time, fines, etc.

A RR can do just about what ever it wants to it's own private property, asside from the FRA regulations, and lawsuits from accidents, there is very little governing a RR operations and maintenance.

As long as they get railcars from point A, to point B, relitively safely ... they probably saved billions by letting track fall into a Penn Central dilapidated shape.

MeowRailroad said:

But where did they come up with Guilford Transportation from? I wonder how much money they "save" by not fixing it compared to lost money due to wrecks, lost time, fines, etc.

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Guilford Connecticut where David Fink comes from.

Guilford/PAR will not spend anything on maintenance unless they have to. Back east, up to Fitchburg on this line, and in the greater Boston area north like where I live, the MBTA does the maintenance. Amtrak does the line up to Portland, ME, and New Brunswick, ME. The rest of the lines are trashed.

It's called being penny wise and pound foolish. You'd think by spending more on the infrastructure, they'd be able to move freight faster. Nope! Not even their locmotives run well, and these are mostly old SD40-2s.

John

It's amazing how many companies run under the penny wise pound foolish system, not only railways.
I worked in engineering most of my working life and always received emergency calls from a customer when something had broken.
It was very rare to get any work on general maintenance of machinery that still worked.

Cheers,
Bill69

Bill69 said:

It's amazing how many companies run under the penny wise pound foolish system, not only railways.
I worked in engineering most of my working life and always received emergency calls from a customer when something had broken.
It was very rare to get any work on general maintenance of machinery that still worked.

Cheers,
Bill69

Click to expand...

This sounds familiar. My old company, now long closed, did the same. Our computer room was a relic with servers dating as far back as 1998 during the late 2000s. Things would die and I'd have to make do as I was told until it got critical then I'd be blamed for not getting the parts replaced.

What gets me is this railroad was brought back from the ashes and then a leveredged buyout by Mellon got the company. He owned the Maine Central for many years as part of his American Filter Corp which made equipment filters, and a railroad tie company. He merged the MEC into the B&M, then quickly brought in the D&H, then cut maintenance immediately. The unions struck due to cuts in wages so the company changed names and moved to New Hampshire, from Billerica, MA where it became the Springfield Terminal. The ST was a non-union subsidiary, about 1 mile long former trolley line, that was owned by the B&M. By busting things around, avoiding taxes, and doing this deal, the workers went on strike again. The D&H ended up in bankruptcty first and was sold off after they scrapped one of the old main lines - the one from Binghamton to Scranton. The rest of the company, which was once two Class 1 railroads, lost many, many miles of very active mainline. These lines weren't just closed, instead connections were cut so not even a short line could take over. In some places, where they did sell off lines, they kept the middle so no one could operate them. In Maine, on the former MEC upper road to Augusta (there are two lines), the company was taken to court by the state, but they still refued to operate the line. Today the Maine Eastern runs the line for Maine DOT. This is one nasty company that many people, including many rail fans would like to see get sold off to NS or someone else.

John

All I have is the screen shot does anyone kow who made this kit:'(

Looks like FT Track ... I once tried that, but found it easier to create my own ladders by hand ... I have used them as a last resort, as a guide, when laying very complex sets of multiple turnouts.

I think they are some of Stationmistress' early versions.
cheers,
Mike

mikeaust said:

I think they are some of Stationmistress' early versions.
cheers,
Mike

Click to expand...

I don't remember posting any screenshots using FT track like that. All mine showed the guides filed with normal track.

Reference the wobbly track; I always thought the tracks were super straight too until I started getting Classic Trains magazine and noticed how many tracks had slight humps, dips, and curves in them. So I took a closer look at our local tracks and sure enough they are like that too, in some places on straight stretches one track is higher than the other. I was obsessed with my yards when I would notice my loco wobbling a bit but not now.

Also I have tried the yard templates but admit they confuse me, the two ruler idea looks like a nice option.