Tracklaying Curves: It Shouldn't Be This Hard

Insert splines, move spline, delete spline. move some more, try again, rip it out, try again. Ughh.

Read a lot, watched videos, try again. To be fair, lots of the routes I've seen seem to have some of the same problems. or break all the curves with straight sections. The flex always wants to fly somewhere else. All I'm trying to do with this right now is to have beautiful, smooth high speed curves with 2 mile radius. Using rulers, advanced tools...what am I missing?

Curves are painful and always have been, but there are ways to tame them.

1) Think of the curves as having a beginning spline point, a point in the middle, and an end spline point.

2) Drag your splines in the direction of travel. I have found that when laying track that keeping the track in the direction of travel makes curving the track easier as well as placing track-objects such as signals and speed limit signs.

3) Line up the spline points of one track with the spline points on another.
Lay one track however you need it. Lay the second track in the opposite direction and place the spline points in exactly the same position and then line them up. The spacing between the tracks is 4.5 meters and is about where the spline circle touches the edge of the ties on the other track and if looked from above at the intersecting spline points, it appears to be a football shape.

There are spacer template objects such as track spacers that can help keep the track spaced apart if you need them.

<kuid2:45324:38100:1> 4.5m Track Spacing Template

This is a built-in object, according to my install. This is a fixed-track object (like a scenery object). You connect the track to it and this keeps the track spaced apart. You can remove the object later and connect the spline points.

These work similarly and are from the DLS, I think.

<kuid2:55396:39001:1> djb_Track_Spacer_4m
<kuid2:55396:39000:1> djb_Track_Spacer_5m

And this one too.

<kuid:106916:10328> PRR Track Guide

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There are even some curve guide tools on the DLS - my favourite is "r100 r300" by james73 <kuid:69518:39002> - just put a spline point at each guide point and your curves will look perfect!

One way, maybe not the best, but I have used it. I would set an arrow 2 miles from the point of the start of the curve. That is the center. Then set another arrow 2 miles straight out the other way from the center, that is the end of the curve if you are making 180 degrees. Then draw an arrow up from the center at a 90 degree angle for 2 miles. That is the mid point of the curve. If necessary you can do 45 degree arrows as well, but I have found if I hit the beginning, middle and end points the curve usually smooths itself out.

Thanks for the tips. I will check out the guides. I remember measuring out angles with HO flex-track for transition curves...don't want that Atlas snap-track look.

I'm utilizing rulers, but was unable to get a satisfactory look on the largest curve, and kept messing with spline points and only made it worse. The plan is learning how to super-elevate, but the squirrely track is a trick to master first.

After a few months of operating on other folks' routes, I thought I would learn how to make my own. Some of this is frustrating, but accomplishment holds its own rewards.

C_ --

Templates.

My favourite -- "90d_100-400m Template", kuid2:37522:9994:2

It's what I consider as "really useful". I've used this on just about all the routes I've ever uploaded to the Download Station, the latest being "Deepwater":

https://forums.auran.com/trainz/showthread.php?158162-New-layout-The-Deepwater-Railroad-Company

I used "Curve Radius ... ", kuid2:142427:300xx:1, for the more sweeping curves in "Rivercide":

https://forums.auran.com/trainz/showthread.php?157492-Newish-TRS19-route-The-Rivercide-Railroad-Co

Phil

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I will experiment with every one of these suggestions. Thanks again.

So the guides were a revelation, and especially useful with multiple tracks. Future and more serious planning will use these as anchors while laying out from critical points.

I also went back and re-did big sections of what I was trying to do using different techniques and had big fun. The biggest thing was not to fight the program and over-do the spline points. Some of the transition curves work great, others...

Since this is still early days for my tracklaying skillz, I very much appreciate the guidance.

Regards,

Blabsky

I use the built-in FT Tracks as guides lay you tracks over the FT, avoid placing your track ends over the FT splines.

John

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Still not having the best visual success at getting the kinks out. The other post about attempting to cut turnouts on curves was also informative, as after getting some big curves reasonably smooth I wrecked them by trying to get junctions cut in and had to redo them. They needed some improvement anyways.

No curved turnouts; that seems like an object that could be made (hey, I've only been here a few months).

In further work, I've determined that serious looking trackwork takes serious planning. Showing the wire works, using rulers, and measuring as close as possible makes a big difference. A curve to turn over 90 degrees seems to take on extra wiggle.

I still seem to miss something as far as hammering down the spline points exactly where I want them, if that is even possible. They always want to flare out at the end.

C_ --

It ain't all that difficult -- provided you use the templates, as I suggested in my post above.

I'd suggest downloading one or two of my routes and then going into Edit. This will show the spline points and where I've used the straighten track tool. And that I always use a straight section of track for switches and where the curve radius changes.

Post #4 in this thread might also be useful:

https://forums.auran.com/trainz/sho...Kab-Fourword-Railroad-quot&highlight=fourword

Keep at it. It becomes a little easier after a while.

Phil

I use the method that Tony suggests all the time. I place track where I want to start and where I want finish. I then just join the two, straighten the track at each end and get a perfect curve. If i need to change the curve I place a vertex about a third of the way in from each end and adjust the curve with them.
Cheers,
Mike

Once again, thanks to the folks who have posted on this. I hope that the theme, "It Shouldn't be this Hard," was understood to reflect only my rookie attempts at tracklaying and not a critique of the program. With almost every sim/game acquired during the past 3 decades (and there have been...several), I've enjoyed seeing how far it can be manipulated, whether by the GUI or my feeble mod skills.

This particular experiment was to produce a smooth curve, 180 degrees over 4 baseboards, with thoughts of learning to super-elevate, and kind of morphed into seeing how smooth curve transitions could be made.

Tracklaying is still only in the learning stage, as I spent the first 3 months just downloading (200+ routes) and learning how to operate. I think I can produce very acceptable (simple) tracks after a few weeks, especially after the info gained on this thread.

regards,

Blabsky

You're not wrong - it shouldn't be this hard.

My problem with everyone's solution about the guides is that very few curves turn exactly 90 degrees or 180 degrees, so now you're trying to mesh two guides together if you're going for some other angle (set one for each end of the curve and get points to line up? good luck)

My problem with FT pieces is they're just like model railroad fixed pieces - there's no easement into the curve... One moment you're going straight, the next moment you're immediately curved. Imagine trying to do this with your car - if your steering wheel instantly turned 20 degrees to the right your front wheels would skid before your car finally turned... You "ease" into curves by turning the wheel over time, railroads do the same thing - tracks ease into the curve by going from straight tangent (essentially an infinite radius) to a definite radius over a distance. FT goes to that radius immediately.

Trainz default drawing of curved splines does the exact opposite of this - even if you straighten the track leading to the curve, it goes from an infinite radius (the straightened track) to an almost instantly small radius, gradually easing out to a larger radius, and then back to a small radius before the next spline point. This happens with every spline point. The more spline points you add to the curve, you're not really fixing this, you're just adding more points for the system to calculate a curve to approximate the real thing, but no matter how many you add, the point is the spline curve calculation in Trainz is still following the same flawed procedure.

Barring a major overhaul in this calculation method in the core of Trainz, which would ultimately break thousands of existing routes because of the numerous current workaround methods mentioned in this and other threads, there is no perfect answer to lay curves correctly. As I've primarily worked on real-world routes, I just do my best to follow the track curves using UTM tile images (from TransDEM) and a lot of trial and error to get the curves looking right. Sometimes it's moving the "start" of a curve back into the straight section more, sometimes its adding more points to the curve, sometimes it's straightening or unstraightening track, regardless, it's a mess.

There's pros and cons to every piece of software... I find Trainz Surveyor a hundred times easier to work with than the World Editor in Train Simulator (which has never really been changed since it was Rail Works 2) and even though laying curves is more.... engineered, for lack of a better term.... in the RW editor, it's still a royal pain in the butt. It does draw curves more correctly, but figuring out where to start your curves when trying to follow a real world route using the horribly antiquated Google Earth overlay system is just as hard as trying to lay extra spline points in Trainz to do the same thing.