A question for people who use 3rd and 4th rail in your routes

Prince271088

New member
Hi everyone,

A quick question for the people who use 3rd and 4th rail in their routes. When it comes to things like stations or any other case where you have to use fixed track, how do you prevent the track from mirroring the wrong way? My initial guess was you maybe use a 2 rail track for the station that matches your 3rd or 4th rail track and then manually add the extra rails using splines afterwards? If it's not this method, how do you accomplish keeping your rails facing the same way throughout?

Many thanks.

Ben
 
Hi everyone,

A quick question for the people who use 3rd and 4th rail in their routes. When it comes to things like stations or any other case where you have to use fixed track, how do you prevent the track from mirroring the wrong way? My initial guess was you maybe use a 2 rail track for the station that matches your 3rd or 4th rail track and then manually add the extra rails using splines afterwards? If it's not this method, how do you accomplish keeping your rails facing the same way throughout?

Many thanks.

Ben

Very easy Ben. I use the AJS Invisible Stations on all my routes. Whatever rail you are using it automatically sets it in the platform area. See screenshot.

This saves you from placing additional splines along the track.

station-and-3rd-rail.jpg

Cheers,
Roy
 
That only works if the third rail is away from the platform. If it is on the platform side as it approaches the station then it will still be there. What the OP wants is the best way of having the third rail away from the platform, as happens in real life for safety, in this situation. One trick I have used is to join the two 3 rail tracks with a length of invisible track and then use shift+move to reduce it to effectively zero length so that the two rail appear joined. The only problem is that it doesn't represent the prototypical overlap of the conductor rails.
 
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That only works if the third rail is away from the platform. If it is on the platform side as it approaches the station then it will still be there. What the OP wants is the best way of having the third rail away from the platform, as happens in real life for safety, in this situation.

This is one of the frustrating things with Trainz because the track "flips" around when it connects to the platforms. I ended up using a third-rail spline at the stations and third-rail track on the rest of my route I was building. It was saner that way with less hair pulling.
 
I use the dual gauge (ng/sg) 3 rail track. When I get to a town, I swish to the 4 rail version. Pretty much need that for the turntables.
 
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