GWR Broad Gague stuff

nwallace · Post by **nwallace** » Wed Nov 19, 2003 8:38 pm

Well i tink the GWR Broad Gauge stuff looks quite nice,

Suprised there isn't and GWR track avaliable either

saddletank · Post by **saddletank** » Wed Nov 19, 2003 10:55 pm

Decapod was fiddling with BG track a while back but got seduced by the satanic forces of the Dark Side (aka Col Stephens).

Tim Booth was also testing the waters with a gauge poll a while back and broad gauge came high in the responses.

Dual gauge would be quite something wouldn't it, although the dual gauge XTracks sections (3ft and 4ft 8.5") have run into severe signalling issues as both trains use the same path and MSTS signalling can't 'see' the two gauges, it's just one length of track with 3 rails as far as the sim is concerned.

davidaward · Post by **davidaward** » Thu Nov 20, 2003 2:02 pm

I would love to see some Broad Guage stuff on MSTS, something like a South Devon Line in the 1860s with a broad guage saddle tank, so that we can live those days in MSTS that are not now possible!!!!!!

nwallace · Post by **nwallace** » Thu Nov 20, 2003 3:42 pm

Can someone explain how dual gauge worked then?

I thoguht it really was just a piece of track with 3 rails

Niall

saddletank · Post by **saddletank** » Fri Nov 21, 2003 2:23 am

It was, although pointwork could be quite complicated, as could the trackwork at places where the inside rail was common to access a platform face for example (changeover from nearside to offside). Also if a mixed gauge line had a point that only a standard gauge siding led off from, a signal would be placed to control access to that siding and in the real thing (tm) only the standard gauge drivers would obey it. But the sim does not care about the gauge of track so a BG engine could travel along a standard gauge line for example without any adverse effect in the sim except that it would look stupid.

So you'd need to be careful with mixed gauge and personally I think the pitfalls would be so many that I'm confident in saying it won't really work with MSTS1. You need a sim where the game code knows how far apart the rails are.

nwallace · Post by **nwallace** » Fri Nov 21, 2003 5:29 pm

ah ok.

Would have to do pre multi gauge broad gauge then.

Niall

johndibben · Post by **johndibben** » Sat Nov 22, 2003 12:57 pm

I've looked at doing broad gauge with standard track and scaling down. The models would be very small and track would have to be reduced in size. The broad gauge also used stretchers as opposed to sleepers. The rails sat on wood with strechers every so many feet. Distances varied but about 10 to 15 feet probably.

Mixed gauge would be very tricky. It would be a case of one gauge and the other being dummy.

Mixed gauge trains were run and some broad gauge stock had very large buffer to accomodate this. Some standard gauge stock had extended buffers as well.

Mixed gauge trains were normally goods trains.

The loco's and stock are far from easy. They were very simple in design but very 'open' in style.

Plenty of twiddly bits.

Modelling cars and lorries is preferable to horses and carts. Carriages on wagons, guards and luggage on tops of carriages etc.

A lot harder to model than it first appears ....

nwallace · Post by **nwallace** » Sun Nov 23, 2003 12:21 pm

Yeah suppose.

But it woudl still be nice to see

saddletank · Post by **saddletank** » Mon Nov 24, 2003 2:17 pm

John, I've seen a screenshot of a broad gauge engine in MSTS built to run on standard track. Effectively this is nearly 'half-scale' instead of the 2x used by the NG boys. The problem is the overscale rails look even worse than on standard gauge trains so it looks like the loco is running along two massive steel girders.

johndibben · Post by **johndibben** » Mon Nov 24, 2003 5:10 pm

Never tried it but I can imagine how awful it looks, Martin. Might look better on finescale track I suppose but broad gauge track would be very nice.

timbooth · Post by **timbooth** » Tue Nov 25, 2003 3:34 am

I started some work on broad gauge track, non-dual initially, and I will try and put a basic set together once I have understood the broad gauge conventions.

Mixed gauge is ok, and both operable - you can set up multiple paths for track shapes, even turnouts can be done. Activities would have to be carefully designed though as the two paths are very close, you might have trouble identifying which path is standard or not.

As far as signalling goes, i'm sure you can link two signals together (where one would be a dummy one, ie. not visible), according to my understanding of the sig scripts, but that may be completely false.

The main problem with BG routes is that you will struggle to find even basic route info, very few photo's, and not many drawings to work from for stock. Early BG routes were very simple though, just a loop at each station, and a siding, (typically).

I'm happy to put together a broad gauge track pack, but mixed gauge would require a lot of design and testing to ensure its actually worth doing.
A dummy 3rd rail seems pointless because you'd only ever see BG trains running, spoiling the point of building a mixed gauge route.

I will order some track drawings from the BG society, and make a start shortly.