Hump Shunting, Mmonti,s Multiplayer LMR Summer TS12.

colourlight

New member
My railway career, as a signaller started in 1969 at the tender age of 15, in my home town of March. In those days March had one of the largest marshalling yards in Europe, Whitemoor, which boasted of having two hump shunting yards seperated by the March to Spalding Line and a smaller flat shunting yard over "The knuckle" called Norwood. March also had a large locomotive Depot 3IB, which had at that time class 08,31 and 37 locomotives plus a variety of visiting locomotives. So hump shunting was of great interest to me and was a natural part of the landscape. Imagine my joy when I discovered an American hump shunting yard, Smithville, whilst playing the above session, Not not only that, it had an array of rolling stock in the Inbound and Outbound Yards. As an added bonus the adjacent Motive Power Depot held a number of locomotives of strange types (to me). Thank You Mmonti.
And so my new career as a Trainz Hump Shunter began. After a period of trial and error, not to mention derailments I,m getting quite good at it. My main discovery is that hump shunting in Trainz involves a different technique to that employed in real life. In Whitemoor trains arrived on the Hump reception sidiings and were "cut up" into the required sections by the cutters. A class 08 coupled to the rear and pushed it over the hump at a constant speed. I can,t remember what it was but it must have been about 3-5 mph. As the train went over the top of the Hump the 1st cut detached itself and rolled down the hump.
At the bottom retarders slowed the cut down and it then rolled into it,s allocated siding. Once in the siding it,s speed was controlled by men called "chasers". I found that in Trainz it is not possible to divide the train into "cuts" before you start pushing it over the hump, nor is it possible to drive at a constant speed over the hump for several reasons. I have developed two hump shunt tecniques which work quite well. . The 1st and my preferred method is to push the train over the top of the hump at 5 mph, make the "cut", throttle to 0 and as the train slows down the cut should detach and start rolling. When the train has slowed down to 2 mph, open throttle, I use notch 4 usually, wait for train to reach 5 mph and repeat. This is not always possible however as you also have to monitor the previous cuts rolling into the yard and operate the point switches. And also, the cuts don,t always detach from the train. And so this leads to my 2nd, and easier technique. I stop the train on the down slope and then make the cut. End of Part 1.
 
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Hump Shunting Mmonti,s MultilPlayer UMR Summer 2012 continued.

Part 2. I encountered a few problems when I started Hump Shunting which I have, largely compensated for. The cuts must not be too close together when they roll down the hump or the point switches will stay locked after the first cut has passed and you will not be able to move them. Much more serious, every now and again a cut will overshoot the siding, travel over the point switch and roll back into the siding. I soon learnt to set the switch for the siding. This brings me to the next problem. Once or twice the cut has gone past a 2nd point switch which has to be set for the next siding. The cut should, hopefully, stop without rolling back and so it is simply a matter of pushing the cut through the switch, changing it and setting back into the allocated siding. A less serious problem is the cut stopping before it is fully in the siding. Provided you can move the point switch you can carry on hump shunting and either move it later or when you need to put another cut into that siding. As in real life you cannot have too many wagons in a cut, I generally stick to 4 or 5 max, depending on the weight. loaded scrap or cement wagons need a lot of stopping power. I think I have listed the main problems in relation to hump shunting. I encountered others which are caused by multiplayer which I won,t go into. I think thats about it except to mention the retarders in Trainz are in the sidings, 2 per siding I believe, and the cuts are also contolled by gradients at each end of the sidings. I cannot close this thread without paying tribute to Neilsmith who built the route, as well as Mmonti who made the session.
 
Hi colourlight

A good job. Thanks for the humpyard operation description Since you have worked in one of these yards, I'm wondering how the sorted wagon are removed from the humpyard. Do they bring them out the same way they entered or through the other end or does it not matter.

Rob
 
About 95% of the time they arrived at one end and went out the other like a production Line although there were exceptions, This was mainly due to there being 3 main routes from March/Whitemoor plus a branch line to Wisbech which was freight only in the 70,s. At the north end of Whitemoor was the "Joint line" a 2 track mainline to Spalding. Interestingly If you look at ECML (East Coast Main Line) in TS12, Spalding is included in it as a diversionary route for the ECML. Numerous freight trains from the Midlands and the North of England and Scotland arrived in Whitemoor via this route and were shunted over the Up Hump and mostly departed southwards for East Anglia and London. At the South End of Whitemoor were three routes. A single line (one train working) to Wisbech which handled 2 freight trains in each direction every day, The East Curve which took trains to March Station and all points South and the West Curve which took trains to Peterborough (see ECML again) and also the East Midlands. Trains into Whitemoor from Peterborogh mostly travelled through Whitemoor on the Slow line (part of the March- Spalding Line and backed up the Up hump. Trains from the South arrived ion The Down Hump reception although a few went into Norwood Yard, as did the trains from Wisbech that had to back in. Must close, getting busy at work.
 
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