TRS 19 ATLS, Questions from A Novice

Ok, novice in regards to ATLS which I've never added to my routes but then mine are usually early 20th century. Working on updating/fixing a route on the DLS and I've found a heap of ATLS slaves that are un-named which equals faulty (written in capitals if you check the properties of them). Two questions.

1) I am seeing on double track 8 (eight) ATLS triggers. Surely there should only be (need) 4? The extra 4 at place hard up against the road each side on the track. Wouldn't these be pointless?

2) I am also seeing Traffic Stopper <kuid:77174:50003> Traffic Stopper 12m and 2 others made by Dave Snow used on the same crossings. Isn't this a doubling up of functions, ie wouldn't you use either ATLS or Traffic Stopper?

The answers I am sure are obvious to many, but I've rarely look at this before. Thanks in advance.

TRS19 broke all of the old ATLS crossings by causing them the require renaming on import into TRS19. There is no easy way to fix this. What you are seeing with the triggers, is an entry and and exit trigger. On mono directional double track you will use 4 triggers, but for bi directional double track it would require 8.
ATLS on its own is primarily a way to trigger level crossings and is not designed as a traffic stopper. VR Level crossing kit by Jerker appears to use the boom as a built-in traffic stopper, but has sound radius issues. Most often a traffic stopper is deployed to do just that (particularly where no ATLS crossing assets are used) and is joined to the crossing and controller/slave with invisible track, but not all ATLS lights and booms will stop cars.
cheers
Graeme

TRS19 needs all the assets named as separate items. You can use the same name but need to add in brackets an additional letter, (a), (b), etc. ATLS has several modes it works in with regards to triggers.
Two-way mode needs trains to pass 2 triggers, open and close. Four-way mode needs 4 triggers, 1 open, 2 ignored, 3 close and 4 ignored. 4 and 2 become 1 and 3 from the opposite direction. This allows the train to close the crossing earlier than the 2 trigger mode.
There are several traffic stoppers of different lengths now to span wider tracks. Older routes did not have those choices so needed two stoppers to span wide tracks or else cars stopped on the track.

Graeme the ATLS was first used for traffic lights with the stoppers, crossings came later and all triggers are bi-directional unless used with the arrive or leave mode settings.

Don't take this the wrong way i asked the same question maybe 3 to 4 months ago and just shook my head to the answer. The key word here is A Novice. I want to dig deep but it so hard to find a starting point not being a programer.

If you download the ATLS Advanced Demo and session it was created to allow all different setups. No programming needed, assets are named in the properties window of the asset. http://www.boatztrainz.co.uk/ gives information on all of his ATLS assets.

Hm, yer, ok lol! So basically seems they are set correctly, except someone forgot to name most of the ATLS slaves. I've named them all (50+), so it should in theory be ok. Rather too complicated for me but I get the basics. Thanks for the info.

Hi Alikiwi,

There are pdf Turtorials for ATLS (and other stuff) here http://www.boatztrainz.co.uk/tutorials.html

Pre to TRS19 Slaves and Controllers did not need to be named so if a Route was built before about 2019 then they will probably be blank. Any new Slaves or Controllers placed in a new Route now will auto name but assets in older Routes will have to be manually named and saved.

There are some new ATLS assets, e.g the Controller/Slave which make setting up new assets easier and quicker.

Hope that helps,

Boat

I also have a couple of questions.

I was sucessfully using the ATLS assets to control level crossings, with several different configurations, in TS12 and then TANE.

I was using the "Inverse Slave" to inhibit signals clearing until after the crossing had opened - I was using several different signals, not the ATLS-configurable ones.

Now I have upgraded to TRS19, the "Inverse Slave" does not seem to be clearing as expected. The instructions say I should update all my assets to V3 which I have done (except the Inverse Slave, only a V2.7 available). They also say I should use a "Slave Trigger" which has an inverse function instead, but I cannot get this to work.

How do I set up the Slave Trigger? Is there still a method of preventing signals clearing that I can use?

Don't use the slave trigger for what you wish to do. Trainz is changing its methods and the trigger is for the future method. The older slaves use an invisible loco to trick the signals while the new trigger uses script and will only activate a message once. The old slave kept the loco active until it was triggered and then vanished until triggered again. The script ones send the message but have no active asset to trick the signal into thinking a loco is on the track. This will also become a problem for the control of bridges as they need an active loco to control them. This has already been a problem where two channels have been used to control an asset like barriers.

Hi David,

The old Inverse Slave uses the old ATLS system so it won't work with the new assets. As you say, the Slave/Trigger has an inverse option so I hoped that would cover uses of the old Inverse Slave.... but it depends exacty what you are doing with it.

The difference between the old Slaves and the new Slave/trigger is that the old Slaves contained an Invisible Train. The train was in existance when ATLS was activated and not there when ATLS was de-activated, (or the other way round for the Inverse Slave)
The new assets just send a message to the level crossings to be 'on' or 'off'. This message only gets sent at the beginning and end of the ATLS cycle.

Thinking about it, if you're using the Inverse Slave to have an invisible train there to control signals, the new Slave/Trigger in inverse isn't going to work. Hadn't thought of that! LOL
Looks like I'll have to do a TRS19 version of the Inverse Slave.

Drop me a pm with your e-mail address and I'll get you to test it!

Boat

PM sent. Thanks &#55357;&#56841;

Ok, ran in to a problem uploaded the fixed route. There are two traffic stoppers by Dave Snow, <kuid:101046:106336> Traffic Stopper 26m DES and <kuid:101046:106298> Traffic Stopper 17m DES. The upload was rejected as it appears these have never been on the DLS. I assumed they came with the Port Tillamook route, but I guess not. I've tried to reduce the non-DLS items, so are there suitable substitutes on the DLS? Otherwise I can upload without, but then it'll be the usual "missing dependencies" for anyone who hasn't an earlier version of the route.

Search for ATLS traffic stopper. Both Boat and Paulzmay have various length ones.