Atomic Systems

Has anyone had a "Game Over" because of something in the dialogue box that says "Because of consist tilt", whatever that is ? I built additions to my ongoing test route for KRS, and took one of the consists, a 24-car train of HTAs all full, from the start point, about 1 mile away to the yards I made.

Then stopped and reversed into a dead-end siding ever-so-carefully. Stopped about 2-3 metres from the buffers, stretched the couplings carefully, and uncoupled the lead engine (one of 2 Class 47s), and then reversed slowly (no more than 1.5 mph) to couple to the rear loco as a test. Fine so far, then when I used the Drivers' Aid to uncouple the two locos from the train, the same occurance as previously, resulted once again. "What ???" You ask.

The coal cars all derailed and went flying everywhere. Dialogue box came up to say that the player train derailed because of "consist Tilt". Is there a valid reason for that happening ? Is it track-related perhaps ? The tracl looks fine to me. No gaps or bad joints either. Ground under the track is level and smooth also. Has this happened to you before ? If so, what were you doing, and is it preventable ?

Regards...

Jim McDermott

I've had this a couple of times. What I think is that although easing back before uncoupling to relieve the buffer forces ought to work, it isn't possible to see whether it actually done enough. I suspect that it hasn't, and that it might be necessary to haul the wagons back a few feet and then come to a halt again before uncoupling.

I think that what is happening is that only the first few vehicles are having the compression force released; the remainder are still compressed and waiting their chance to expand.

(Edit) I've just been playing around: I shunted violently into a couple of trucks, which bounced on ahead of me, leaving clear air between the buffers. Inching the engine gently up so that the buffers barely touched and using Ctrl-Shift_C to couple up made both trucks bounce violently, so that they obviously had stored energy in the buffer springs. Because they had bounced off the engine for a short distance there was no way at all to draw them apart and release the stored energy, other than coupling up.

So I think it's still the old sticky wagons issue. It might be possible to fix it in the physics side, but I can't see any way that you could prevent it just from driving, other than not compressing the buffers of the stock in the first place.

I can't find the old RSDL list of issues that were built up pre-Mk1 upgrade, so I can't tell if this was already reported and acknowledged as an issue. Perhaps Adam or Derek could check for us, please?