Help with Mile Post markers.

Jayco-man

Member
Ok I have my route made with dem data, I have track laid, so I set in my mile post markers as best as I could using my N&W map I got from N&W Historical Society. I set the first one using a tunnel which should be with in reason ,and made a mile long train set my next mile post, but when I go in driver and watch the map the mile posts dont line up with the mile marks that I set in the route, so how can I adjust them to where they fall with my mile posts or can I?
 
Do you have the feature that lets you toggle between using surveyor and driving within a session? If you don't, this won't work.

If you do, you could create a throw-away session then drive the loco until you reach a mile on the HUD display, stop the loco, then switch to surveyor and place or move your mile marker making certain that it is associated with the route layer (not the session layer), then switch back to driving until you reach the next mile on the display and do it again. Save everything when you are done. Then delete the session. I'm not certain how accurate the screen HUD data is. It may not match the historical documents that you have.

If you saved the mile markers on the session layer, they will disappear when you delete the session.
 
If you are using old railway maps, consider the possibility that the mileposts set up 100+ years ago may not have been truly accurate.
If so, you will have to decide whether to use Trainz miles or old map miles.
 
This is an old issue. Distances in Trainz insofar as the system is concerned are all metric. The mile to kilometer conversion factor is rounded (1500m iirc, but not certain). If your 'mile long train' is accurate, your mile post markers are accurate, and Trainz is wrong. You need to decide whether to have your markers a real mile apart, or an approximate Trainz mile apart. This issue has been around since the very beginning, it's the sort of thing I'd much prefer to see fixed rather than the development hours that went into giving us grey-on-grey surveyor menus....
 
That feature, the UDS, is only available in TRS19 Platinum Edition and Trainz Plus.


Thanks pware and sorry Jayco-man. I was afraid of that when I saw that you had the standard version of TRS19. Disregard my post.

Using a mile-long train is how I used to locate mile markers.
 
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Well I place them roughly where I believe they should be, then go for a drive. I note how far from where they should be (ie write it down), doing a section at a time. Then go back to editing the route and make the adjustments. As others have said, it's never going to be perfect, but you can get it pretty close.
 
...when I go in driver and watch the map the mile posts dont line up with the mile marks that I set in the route
Joe I'm a little confused - are the mile posts you mention here those shown in the new hud or something you placed on the route? And what are the mile marks?

The section of the PRR main line I model in central PA - middle division - has mile markers originally placed and ID'd at whole mile distances but in only a very few cases are they spaced exactly 5280 ft between MPs - even back in the 1920s. I have a 1952 version of the chart chart with the same MPs as back then. Most vary from a few to a 100 ft difference. But the worst is over 1000 ft short of a mile. The difference is accumulative and at the end of the 42 mile section I modeled, the PRR track chart shows the MPs markers are off by 2400 ft from actual distance. Track alignments changed over time but the PRR didn't respace MPs so they all measure 1 mile. It just changed the distance between them shown on the track charts.

However, I don't get the feeling that you are trying to match up the MP placements on your route to the actual on the prototype. But if you are the above is quite pertinent.

There are 2 assets that can measure track distances available on the DLS.
A rule:<kuid:190611:200005> Tachymeter -> I've never tried this one. It's supposed to work in Surveyor and Driver but it was reported to work only in Driver in TRS19.
A track object: <kuid2:117746:23230:1> Track Scanner -> I've used this and it works in Surveyor as designed.

With the scanner you put down 2 of these and it will find the track distance between them and it should be very accurate. Of course all limits of the tracksearch() methods in the scripting API apply. But if you use a train to measure the length you have to have all switches aligned to define the route of travel for the train - same is required for the scanner. To set an exact distance with this probably some trial and error is necessary. But to verify a previous set distance you just need to place 1 marker at start and another at the end see what the distance actually is. The train has coupler gap and compression and extension to consider so it's not a fixed distance and depends on how it's stretched out and how do you cut the last car up to just make up 1 mile? I know - close enough for Trainz.

The Track Scanner asset reads out distances in km and miles. Of course it only uses 1609m per mile (I checked) but close enough to the more accurate figure of 1609.3440m for Trainz work.

Bob Pearson
 
<kuid2:97008:60824:2> Measuring Wagon Imperial 52'8 Yellow
<kuid2:97008:60813:2> Measuring Wagon Metric 25m Yellow
<kuid2:97008:60821:2> Measuring Wagon Imperial 52'8 Green
<kuid2:97008:60814:2> Measuring Wagon Metric 25m Red
<kuid2:97008:60822:2> Measuring Wagon Imperial 52'8 Pink
<kuid2:97008:60823:2> Measuring Wagon Imperial 52'8 Red
<kuid2:97008:60811:2> Measuring Wagon Metric 25m Green
<kuid2:97008:60812:2> Measuring Wagon Metric 25m Orange

These might be useful for this if you're not using them already.

The Imperial measurement ones are in 1/10 of a mile increments.

Here's the description from the first one in the list:

52'8 Imperial Wagon Yellow, 100 wagons = 1 mile, 50 wagons = 1/2 mile, 25 wagons = 1/4 mile.
 
This is an old issue. Distances in Trainz insofar as the system is concerned are all metric. The mile to kilometer conversion factor is rounded (1500m iirc, but not certain). If your 'mile long train' is accurate, your mile post markers are accurate, and Trainz is wrong. You need to decide whether to have your markers a real mile apart, or an approximate Trainz mile apart. This issue has been around since the very beginning, it's the sort of thing I'd much prefer to see fixed rather than the development hours that went into giving us grey-on-grey surveyor menus....


I *believe* this was fixed several years ago - at least for the rulers. I just measured a 27941.7' length of track, then switched the route to metric. The number shown on the ruler (8516.6m) was the same as I got converting manually. It was a real problem in the past, though.

Curtis
 
Every now and then I'm glad to be wrong - the OP was just so reminiscent of posts from the dark distant past! Thanks Curtis ;)
 
Every now and then I'm glad to be wrong - the OP was just so reminiscent of posts from the dark distant past! Thanks Curtis ;)
The conversion Auran/N3V used way back was 40 in to a meter. So 1584 m to a 5280 ft mile was what you got with the rulers on the Imperial setting. Close - less than 2% off but why not just program the correct value? Heights in Surveyor were always in meters in any case. So just another reason I never used that setting.

Bob Pearson
 
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