Tutorial: How to use my SAP Hump Yard Kit for TRS19 or later

MSGSapper

Trainz route developer
Part 1 – Introduction

The purpose of this short four part tutorial is to show you how to use my Hump Yard Kit components for TRS19 or later as part of your routes Hump Yard design. The kit consists of the following of my components which can be found on the DLS for download:

<kuid:439337:111847> SAP_Hump_Yard_Decoupler_Accelerator_1_PBR
<kuid:439337:111811> SAP_Hump_Yard_Pneumatic_Retarder_1_PBR


What is a Hump Yard? A hump yard is an artificial hill in the middle of a train yard. Cars are pushed up the hill and uncoupled at the top, and they roll down by themselves onto a preselected track to join other rail cars to form trains. This is a faster way of sorting cars than the traditional “flat” switching, where a crew has to place every car on every track. Hump yards are great operations assets on any route where you want a lot of train traffic. Here is a short 5-minute YouTube video primer on real world Hump Yards that I highly recommend that you should see before proceeding further in this tutorial and which will help give you some idea of how they are supposed to look and work:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ur96lBre0w

Hump yards come in many shapes and sizes, and some are very large indeed! You will need to decide how large you want your hump yard and how many classification and other tracks you will need based on what will fit on your route. This tutorial will not cover design of the hump yard, just using my components as part of the hump yard you want for your route. My kit components address two problems for Trainz Hump Yards. These are:

1. How to push along a string of rail cars but not have to both manually decouple each in turn and ensure each rail car has the correct velocity to roll down the hump grade to the classification tracks. This way you can focus on throwing the appropriate classification track switches for each rail car, and when the string of cars is finished, stopping the locomotive.

2. How to slow down the rolling rail car so it doesn’t bump overly hard into another rail car on the classification track.

Part 2 – The Hump

The center point of the hump yard is the hump itself. The track approaching the hump can be of modest grade. The grade leading down from the apex of the hump needs to be somewhere between 5-10% in order to ensure a proper gravity rolling of the train car that looks fairly realistic. You will also want to have a hump yard tower located so that it overlooks the apex of the hump. If you don’t have one, you might try downloading from the DLS one of the following of my towers:

<kuid:439337:111726> SAP_Hump_Yard_Tower_1_PBR
<kuid:439337:107135> SAP_Railway_Building_11_PBR
<kuid2:439337:101208:1> SAP Interlocking Tower 1
<kuid2:439337:101209:1> SAP Interlocking Tower 2
<kuid2:439337:101210:1> SAP Interlocking Tower 3
<kuid2:439337:101211:1> SAP Interlocking Tower 4


Very near the apex of the hill you will want to place a single instance of my SAP_Hump_Yard_Decoupler_Accelerator_1_PBR component. This visible component can simply be plopped down on any standard gauge track and will automatically uncouple each rail car in turn that enters its set trigger distance, as well as set the velocity of the rail car to the speed you choose in Surveyor. Recommended trigger distance is 1.5 meters (5 feet).

This kit component means you don’t have to manually uncouple each and every rail car, nor do you have to worry about the speed of the rail car being correct on the hump downhill grade. When triggered you will hear a very realistic uncoupling and air hose release sound. For the best results the locomotive that is pushing the string of cars should be approaching the apex of the hill at no more than 3 MPH (5 KPH). Here is a YouTube video I made which shows how to place and configure that component in Classic Surveyor:


Important note: Make sure the red arrow on the component is pointed in the direction that the rail cars will roll.

If you would like to see a very short YouTube video demo of the Decoupler-Accelerator in action, go to this Forum link:

https://forums.auran.com/trainz/showthread.php?83363-Content-by-MSGSapper&p=1971163#post1971163

Continued in next reply.......
 
Last edited:
Part 3 - Pneumatic Retarders

Retarders are used to slow the rail car speed down to a safe speed, so they don’t damage the coupler when one rail car bumps into another on the classification track after rolling down the hump. To make that happen in Trainz you will use one or more of my SAP_Hump_Yard_Pneumatic_Retarder_1_PBR components. This visible component can simply be plopped down on any standard gauge track. When triggered it will produce a highly realistic braking and road wheel squealing sound for each rail car triggering it.

Placement of this component is a little more trickly. Once a rail car enters the trigger distance you set for the component, the speed will be set to the speed you choose in Surveyor. Recommended trigger distance is 6.0 meters (20 feet). Keep in mind that the rail car will roll some distance past the retarder depending on the speed you choose, although this will depend also on the grade of your classification tracks. Recommended grade for classification tracks should be 0%. Some trial-and-error testing on your part may be needed to find the best location for the retarder(s).

Here is a YouTube video I made which shows how to place and configure that component in Classic Surveyor:


If you would like to see a very short YouTube video demo of the Pneumatic Retarder in action, go to this Forum link:

[URL https://forums.auran.com/trainz/showthread.php?83363-Content-by-MSGSapper&p=1971164#post1971164 [/URL]

Part 4 – Credit, Comments and Questions

This was a major collaborative project between me and Paul Cass (pcas1986). A big thanks to Paul Cass whose brilliant scripts made this project possible!

Please post any questions about hump yards and my two components as replies to this thread. Also please keep questions and comments relevant and on topic to this thread.

Bob
 
Last edited:
I just found these gems, but I have some questions. I just got done testing these on my the Coxton Hump Yard route.
#1. How do you get the railcars to switch tracks?
#2. I found at the end of the hump track the railcar stops until the next railcar hits it, and it start moving again. Do I need to put multiple retarder triggers at the ends of the tracks?
 
I just found these gems, but I have some questions. I just got done testing these on my the Coxton Hump Yard route.
#1. How do you get the railcars to switch tracks?
#2. I found at the end of the hump track the railcar stops until the next railcar hits it, and it start moving again. Do I need to put multiple retarder triggers at the ends of the tracks?
Answers:

1. You have to throw the switches manually. All I provide is the retarder and accelerator.
2. You can adjust the speed of the retarder to slow things down further.

Keep in mind that every hump yard is different. You will need to place the retarders based on the length of your yard tracks and the track grades you are using.

Bob
 
Switches will generally lock when anything gets close. Is it the case that the switches have to be thrown prior to the next car being released from the hump? Maybe right after the previous car goes by?
 
Switches will generally lock when anything gets close. Is it the case that the switches have to be thrown prior to the next car being released from the hump? Maybe right after the previous car goes by?
I did try that but the cars are too close together and the switches are always locked by the time the next vehicle is coming through.
 
Maybe you need to set the trigger radius smaller on the switches.

In Surveyor, go to the triggers and track marks tab.
Click on the trigger radius at the bottom and set a value that's smaller than the 20 meters default value and apply that to the switches. You may have to experiment to find out the one that works.
 
Maybe you need to set the trigger radius smaller on the switches.

In Surveyor, go to the triggers and track marks tab.
Click on the trigger radius at the bottom and set a value that's smaller than the 20 meters default value and apply that to the switches. You may have to experiment to find out the one that works.
I'll check that out, thanks!
 
I just found these gems, but I have some questions. I just got done testing these on my the Coxton Hump Yard route.
#1. How do you get the railcars to switch tracks?
#2. I found at the end of the hump track the railcar stops until the next railcar hits it, and it start moving again. Do I need to put multiple retarder triggers at the ends of the tracks?

For the switches you could use the
Directions are in a PDF available on this page;
For the retarders I use multiple ones with decreasing speeds down the track
 
Maybe you need to set the trigger radius smaller on the switches.

In Surveyor, go to the triggers and track marks tab.
Click on the trigger radius at the bottom and set a value that's smaller than the 20 meters default value and apply that to the switches. You may have to experiment to find out the one that works.
I did try this, but it doesn't seem to work on switches.

Edit...Yes it does! I just wasn't making the adjustment the right way. We learn something new everyday in Trainz!
 
Last edited:
Hi Bob,
A bit of bad news, The Hump Yard parts do not seem to work in ver 123794.
I have set the triggers and the speed and the retarder is "ON".

I will cheerfully accept any and all flames if this is my fault!

Dave
 
Hi Bob,
A bit of bad news, The Hump Yard parts do not seem to work in ver 123794.
I have set the triggers and the speed and the retarder is "ON".

I will cheerfully accept any and all flames if this is my fault!

Dave

As the script writer for these assets I'm having a look into this. The retarder works in my TS22 install (123794) but the decoupler is not behaving as I expected for multiple wagons in a consist. It might be an issue with two wagons in the decoupler trigger zone at the same time.

It should work for you with just one wagon plus a loco pushing.
 
Pcas1986,
Thanks for looking into th problem!
I will check the retarder this evening

Dave
 
Well, I just looked and the Retarder works perfectly!!

pcas, I await your solution to the decoupling problem.

Dave
 
I tested the decoupler and it works fine in TS22. What I forgot to do was change the default trigger distance from 20 metres to 1.5 metres as demonstrated in Bob's first video. My consist was five boxcars and a loco and, running at about 5MPH, all five decoupled and ran into the yard. I'm not much of a route builder but I suggest placing your switches/turnouts at a reasonable distance to allow manual switching.

So, I don't think there is anything wrong.
 
Back
Top