JonMyrlennBailey
Active member
This is where trains go in and out of "tunnel portals" in the wall or backdrop to a hidden room used as a staging yard.
I have this on a Trainz layout. Trains shoot in and out of holes in the train room wall at 45-50 scale MPH. In the back hidden room is about 5 scale miles of track and a large yard. Trains have time to decelerate gradually before going into the yard and parking there for a set number of minutes according to AI schedules. When trains get back onto the mainline again, they have enough track distance to get up to speed before shooting back into the train room through the portals.
This gives the visible layout a more realistic effect with a wide variety of trains that don't appear too often. I hold the various trains in the back room at staggered WAIT FOR times between 10 minutes and one hour. The diesel hood unit freight trains, the majority of my trains, have shorter wait times and appear more frequently as they are the most commonly seen train kinds today on real-world American roads. The steam locomotives with classic passenger trains are geld for an hour since they are special or excursion trains. Modern D/E passenger trains time out in back for a half hour for each and every lap around the closed loop layout. 5 miles of the loop is hidden while 7 miles is visible. Each siding in the staging yard is designated for each and every one of my 10 AI mainline trains. This lowers congestion and frequent noise on the visible mainline. Trains appear more occasionally and naturally as on a real American road. The unnatural toy train look of going round and round the track is eliminated and yellow signals are greatly reduced. The mainline in the visible section stays green most of the time as traffic there is now sparse with the addition of my new large back room to hold most of the trains there at any given time.
The backdrop is one of Dave Snow's sky/forests/mountains so the tunnel portals blend into the background of the wall mural. The trains just look like they are going in and out of mountains which are just painted images on the wall. Trains just naturally disappear into the tunnels clean out of sight.
I could have used the portal train emission content but those trains generated don't have a very nice cosmetic skin and one can't customize their looks as one can trains that are actually placed on the tracks in Surveyor with individual engines and railcars.
The portal holes on the backdrop looking like tunnels act as my train emitter for AI-driven trains.
I have this on a Trainz layout. Trains shoot in and out of holes in the train room wall at 45-50 scale MPH. In the back hidden room is about 5 scale miles of track and a large yard. Trains have time to decelerate gradually before going into the yard and parking there for a set number of minutes according to AI schedules. When trains get back onto the mainline again, they have enough track distance to get up to speed before shooting back into the train room through the portals.
This gives the visible layout a more realistic effect with a wide variety of trains that don't appear too often. I hold the various trains in the back room at staggered WAIT FOR times between 10 minutes and one hour. The diesel hood unit freight trains, the majority of my trains, have shorter wait times and appear more frequently as they are the most commonly seen train kinds today on real-world American roads. The steam locomotives with classic passenger trains are geld for an hour since they are special or excursion trains. Modern D/E passenger trains time out in back for a half hour for each and every lap around the closed loop layout. 5 miles of the loop is hidden while 7 miles is visible. Each siding in the staging yard is designated for each and every one of my 10 AI mainline trains. This lowers congestion and frequent noise on the visible mainline. Trains appear more occasionally and naturally as on a real American road. The unnatural toy train look of going round and round the track is eliminated and yellow signals are greatly reduced. The mainline in the visible section stays green most of the time as traffic there is now sparse with the addition of my new large back room to hold most of the trains there at any given time.
The backdrop is one of Dave Snow's sky/forests/mountains so the tunnel portals blend into the background of the wall mural. The trains just look like they are going in and out of mountains which are just painted images on the wall. Trains just naturally disappear into the tunnels clean out of sight.
I could have used the portal train emission content but those trains generated don't have a very nice cosmetic skin and one can't customize their looks as one can trains that are actually placed on the tracks in Surveyor with individual engines and railcars.
The portal holes on the backdrop looking like tunnels act as my train emitter for AI-driven trains.
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