Consist Moves WITHOUT an Engine!

I have been wasting my time trying to get a portal to drop a consist, return that engine and get a local engine to pickup the consist. The latest test produced a new miracle. The arriving train's engine dropped the consist at the trackmark and moved on. Another train, waiting for the first engine to clear the tracks now proceeds to approach the consist to Couple At Trackmark. BUT, the darn consist began to move toward the oncoming engine under its own "special N3V power"!!! It is repeatable. I will report it, which will take more of my time filling out all of the forms.

I tried to report the problem but it kept on the same opening ticket page. I will just remove the month's work and try something else. That Helpdesk is the oddest I have ever seen. But sort of typical for low budget companies relying on free customer provided support. Comcast does that as well by using customers to support their products rewarding them on their billing and giving them heroic sounding military names as they fix problems. Seems to be a strong trend. When I worked for a very large corporation, the accounting department could never understand the term "Customer Service". They kept questioning its actual value as measured in dollars. I would dummy up some stuff as "loss revenue avoidance" which made it difficult for them to validate.

I love the part where a portal emits a train backward, or with no driver and it just meanders along at 40 MPH.

:B~D

Have you ever seen a consist that lost its engine but not the engineer? I have!!! Several times after the major upgrade to Build 123794. It is like the hamster is dead, but the wheel is still turning. The consist (in this case a freight train) keeps going, eventually slows down and stops. In my case it is not a portal issue. It just happens randomly. Anyone else with that issue?

deighton said:

Have you ever seen a consist that lost its engine but not the engineer? I have!!! Several times after the major upgrade to Build 123794. It is like the hamster is dead, but the wheel is still turning. The consist (in this case a freight train) keeps going, eventually slows down and stops. In my case it is not a portal issue. It just happens randomly. Anyone else with that issue?

Click to expand...

This occurs when the engine has derailed and the freight cars or passenger coaches are left rolling down the main line, or sometimes part of a consist is left rolling along and another portion has derailed. I've seen this in all versions of Trainz and not just 123794.

Why a locomotive or part of a consist derailed can happen by many things. You may need to check your rail line or the interaction with other AI drivers. If you use something like a junction-controller asset, this can be part of the problem as the AI grabs a junction and moves it in another direction while an AI train is in the process of going through the junction set using the junction-controller. This issue is due to the AI being "blind" to the controller settings. This can also occur if a train is really long and there are some really, really long freight cars in the consist. We've had AI flip levers anyway with long freight cars passing over junctions causing derailments. Again, this has occurred as far back as TRS2006 or TS2009 from what I can remember.

boleyd said:

I have been wasting my time trying to get a portal to drop a consist, return that engine and get a local engine to pickup the consist. The latest test produced a new miracle. The arriving train's engine dropped the consist at the trackmark and moved on. Another train, waiting for the first engine to clear the tracks now proceeds to approach the consist to Couple At Trackmark. BUT, the darn consist began to move toward the oncoming engine under its own "special N3V power"!!! It is repeatable. I will report it, which will take more of my time filling out all of the forms.

Click to expand...

When you drive to the track mark you need a STOP command before the UNCOUPLE command.

When you drive to the track mark you need a STOP command before the UNCOUPLE command.

Nice tip, I use a 5 second wait.

I have no STOPs before any uncouple. Need to add that, if I can remember to do it. - Thanks

boleyd said:

I have been wasting my time trying to get a portal to drop a consist, return that engine and get a local engine to pickup the consist. The latest test produced a new miracle. The arriving train's engine dropped the consist at the trackmark and moved on. Another train, waiting for the first engine to clear the tracks now proceeds to approach the consist to Couple At Trackmark. BUT, the darn consist began to move toward the oncoming engine under its own "special N3V power"!!! It is repeatable. I will report it, which will take more of my time filling out all of the forms.

Click to expand...

It might be your on a grade? If so try issuing the Halt command, Wait 5 seconds, then Unclouple? Maybe that will set the handbrakes?