Signal Reading Distance?

F

falcon500

Trainz drove me crazy
I'm making a DEM based route and have just started adding signals. Route is single track with passing loops. There is a distance of about 18 miles between 2 loops and it seems that this may be too long a distance for signals to be read, as I get a message "line terminates" though there are no gaps in track. Driving towards the loop the sigs ahead turn green eventually. Have never seen any info on signal distances. Am using inbuilt US sigs in TRS2004. As this is a route based on a real line I don't want to change it too much by putting in extra loops where they don't exist. Have got a fair bit of info from other sites on TRS signalling no mention of this. Any suggestion greatly appreciated.
Cheers
 
falcon500 said:
I'm making a DEM based route and have just started adding signals. Route is single track with passing loops. There is a distance of about 18 miles between 2 loops and it seems that this may be too long a distance for signals to be read, as I get a message "line terminates" though there are no gaps in track. Driving towards the loop the sigs ahead turn green eventually. Have never seen any info on signal distances. Am using inbuilt US sigs in TRS2004. As this is a route based on a real line I don't want to change it too much by putting in extra loops where they don't exist. Have got a fair bit of info from other sites on TRS signalling no mention of this. Any suggestion greatly appreciated.
Cheers
Click to expand...

some where i was reading about need to add a switch between the singals
 
Sort of solved the problem by adding a loop halfway. Notice that this thread has had one reply, compared to one about laying parallel track gets 2 pages. Bit hard for the experts maybe. Easy enough to reply to the simple ones. Thanks for the reply will see if that does anything.
 
Some people are in bed others are at work and not everyone spends every day on the forum so do give people time to reply. Some topics may take several days before someone spots it and replies.
As for your question you could use the block rule with an extra signal in the middle.
 
Thanks will see if that works. My point is that this thread had around 70 views and one reply, others get 19 replies often just repeating what others have already said. If had bothered to contact Helpdesk I would have got a standard reply "sorry can't help ask in the forum". When a somewhat tougher question than usual appears the experts that seem to know everything aren't around.
 
falcon500 said:
Thanks will see if that works. My point is that this thread had around 70 views and one reply, others get 19 replies often just repeating what others have already said. If had bothered to contact Helpdesk I would have got a standard reply "sorry can't help ask in the forum". When a somewhat tougher question than usual appears the experts that seem to know everything aren't around.
Click to expand...

It is also possible that the experts you are so pissed off with have never tried 18 miles of track with no passing loops. I know I havn't.

Bill69
 
I read Post 1 this morning (when time is pressing) and thought I'd get to this one tonight if no-one else did. I am normally on earlier in the evenings but it's Friday and I have been shopping :)

Signalling problems on seriously long single line stretches is a known issue. Exactly how seriously long a section needs to be before it becomes a problem eludes me. The solution is a longish passing loop in the middle. Don't want a passing loop? That's OK, build one using invisible track and invisible levers. Place direction markers prohibiting entry to both ends of the invisible loop. Now your signals work because Trainz thinks there are junctions along the way, but the route looks and works as if it was a continuous unsignalled length of track...

Andy ;)
 
My solution

My solution would have been what you have done, put in a passing loop. 18 miles is a long way without one, it is here in the UK anyway!
And it would solve the problem...

Angela
 
Hi Angela and Dermmy, thanks for responses invisible loop idea sounds good for a solution. This route is based on the ex SP line running south from Vaughn in New Mexico. The distance between loops at the southernmost town and the next was over 30 miles so had to add a loop between for better AI running. So would seem around 12 miles may be around signal limit. Am trying to have no more than 20 miles between real loops anything over that will have a loop added between, or an invisible one, if Trainz can't read sigs. This is fairly sparsely populated territory. Not that some parts of Oz or USA to have 20-30 miles between stations. Remember riding mixed trains when I was a kid waiting in the hole (passing loop) for a fair while for another train to pass. Guess I'm just a sucker for the US desert scenery. Don't think this will get to the DLS as it's 260mb, needs trimming down still.
Cheers
 
Titchy!!

Clovis 2 (which includes about 20 miles of the SP/UP route south from Vaughn) is currently sitting at 299Mb with lots still to be done...

Andy ;)
 
Route length is 150 miles, 240km, I've leveled and realigned 95miles of that. This is the SP part of the route. There's also a small part of the ATSF line maybe 15 miles. As any mapboards that can't be seen from the track will be deleted this will probably cut the file size by about a third. As this route will be set in 70's probably some of the smaller towns did have stations that are'nt shown now. The real line connects further north with Rock Island at Tucumcari so with ATSF as well should have a bit of variety.
 
Would the Path Rule Work At all and the timetable in this situation, being one of the ones who has never laid 18 miles of track id be interested to find out.

What I would try is to Setup a route from one Loop Starter Signal to the next one.
 
I had this problem on my first West Highland route Fort William to Mallaig. The distance involved was actually slightly under 18 miles (about 15 I think) but basically the same problem - the default signals could not "see" that far ahead to the next block post. The workaround was to "caution" yourself past the signal and proceed but there was no ready way to do this for AI trains which would just sit at the signal. Also need to be sure you have full awareness of train movements elsewhere on the line to avoid a cornfield meet.

The solution was to replace the Auran signals with third party set and this was discussed at some length on the UK Trainz forum (a search for "Mallaig" should locate any discussion of the topic on this board).

However it is certainly an issue to be aware of if planning routes that have long single track block sections. Something else for the TS-x wishlist, perhaps?

Edit:
Found the original post on here...
http://forums.auran.com/trainz/showthread.php?t=16447

Got it back to front above, however although replacing the LMS semaphores with colour lights achieved a workable result, subsequent to that thread further alterations to the route broke it again. So it's a very fickle situation.
 
Last edited:
angelah said:
My solution would have been what you have done, put in a passing loop. 18 miles is a long way without one, it is here in the UK anyway!
And it would solve the problem...

Angela
Click to expand...

Not that unusual, Angela. On the Far North line, Helmsdale to Forsinard is around 24 miles and Forsinard to Georgemas around 22 miles. On the Central Wales, Craven Arms to Llandrindod was around 29 miles until the crossing loop at Knighton was reinstated. Even now it's still over 18 miles from Knighton to Llandrindod.
 
stouthm said:
I may be dense here but what is wrong with just adding a signal or two along the 18 mile stretch?
Click to expand...

Due to the simplified interlocking in Trainz you would quite likely end up with cornfield meets. Also (thinking outside the US) it's not always prototypical, for example in the UK it is very rare to have intermediate signals on a stretch of single track to split the block.
 
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