Has anyone broken the code on overhead wires?

[m1a2lt]

I read a while back about a rather easy way to delete overhead wires from sidings on electrified routes and some talk was made that there had to be a way to remove the wires from longer routes, especially since road sections are basically roads and don'thave wires. Doing Crewe-Holyhead, the tactic of modifying each piece of track is not feasable and I would like the wires for Crewe and a short piece of the Chester line. Has anyone discovered the way to do this (without the 10000 altitude on wires)?

Andy

[mikesimpson]

Hi Andy,

The method of raising the wire to 10000m would not work in your case, as it covers the whole of the route, so you would not get any wires at all, this is only of use where you want to run electric locos on live tracks.

There are 2 methods of doing this:-

a) Build a set of gantries which include wires, works on the flat, but very difficult to install on steep slopes, you need different models for each different angle of slope.

b) The following method was mentioned on train-sim.com a while ago, but note it will not work with Route-Riter or Okrasa's utilities as in effect the .w files are no longer standard...
quote
If you only need short sections of your route to be without wires, but the major part of it under wires, then there is a work around. I recommend it only for situaitons like spurs in an oil dock, under intermodal cranes, under wood chip loaders etc where a wire would be both silly and suicidal.

The trick to use default wires and get rid of the wires on short, selected spurs and sidings is:

1) Lay track normally, and use default wire.
2) When all RE work on the tile (w-file) in question is complete, get the coordinates of the track sections you want to be without wires.
3) Open the .w file in WordPad, search for the coordinates you just noted.
4) Alter the entry for that track shape from
TrackObj (...)
to
Static (...)
5) Voila, no more wires over that specific piece of track.

You can not rebuild the TDB after this one either.

[m1a2lt]

The first option is not really feasible (for a couple of reason). The second is also not feasible as I'm needing to do at the minimum 105 miles of non-electrified track. I know people were talking about the fact that roads don't have cantenary yet they are tracked as track sections. Why don't they have them if anyone knows; that could be the solution to making a mixture of routes.

Andy

[timbooth]

The wire is drawn by using the tdb data so only affects track sections - road paths are stored in the rdb file, and won't have wires.

There's no flag in any of the database files to turn on wires, its hardcoded that the tdb data is used - thats why all track has to have wires.

[asalmon]

Hmmm, if the wire was drawn along the TDB then editing the W files from track to static wouldn't have any effect - the wires must be drawn along the track sections.

Alan

[dkightley]

The editing of the w file does work.

I've been wanting to do this trick on the NET and I found the answer that Mike has reproduced the text of. I've tried in on a test route and it does work.

A route builder called Swissie on train-sim has used this effect on a tram route he has published.

All that is needed is a way of identifying the ids of a string of track pieces in the w file...and then a little utility can be written to do a mass edit.

[dkightley]

On the subject of overheads....

The MSTS standard track has a single wire as the overhead, and some of the Xtracks points have a two-wire. Is there an easy way of changing the standard track to have a two-wire overhead ie with a support cable??

[asalmon]

I think its just that MSTS puts a support wire over curves

[lumpchase]

As an exended idea to the gantry with the wire built in idea....

could the wire not be built into the track shape file (i.e. have two types of track section (electrified and unelectrified) then all you have to do is use the autogantry feature to add the gantrys to the track which has the electrification.

I see no reason why this could not work - but I may be wrong.

[timbooth]

As an exended idea to the gantry with the wire built in idea....

could the wire not be built into the track shape file (i.e. have two types of track section (electrified and unelectrified) then all you have to do is use the autogantry feature to add the gantrys to the track which has the electrification.

I see no reason why this could not work - but I may be wrong.

I'm doing a set of UKFS shapes with added 3D wire (plus 2D support wires), so you can put electrified track just where you need it. This will initially require a manual world file change for each shape, buts its my intention to update my Track Viewer utility so you can quickly change each shape from there - eg. right-click, and choose an alias to use for the selected shape (plus an option to restore the original shape, if you need to).

This is a better solution than changing to scenic objects, as you won't break the links to the tdb - so you can safely alter the layout and perform a tdb rebuild, even though its not the original shape.

However, you still have the problems of gradients - though if you use a series of short shapes to smooth out the change in gradient, then that will reduce any noticable gaps or overlaps in the wire. IMHO its a minor problem, far outweighed by the benefits.

This could apply to other track systems, if the developers are willing to produce wired versions of each shape.

My Dynatrax utility will also allow wired dynamic track, for use with UKFS and other track systems. I will be releasing the UKFS profile soon, so I can get some feedback.

[mikesimpson]

HI Tim,

Surely, you will then have to define your route as electrified if you wish to use electric locomotives, so you will still need to place your overheadwire at 10000m or whatever? Or have you got around this as well.

I recently downloaded a route with thirdtrack electrics, but you could still see the wires in the sky under certain views (I like to look at the scenery as well as driving the train)

[lumpchase]

Tim, if the wires were at the same height and ended exactly in the centre of the rail at the exact end point i should imagine that the magnetic way the track clicks together would prevent gaps from showiing even on gradiented track.

[terrycunliffe]

The editing of the w file does work.

I've been wanting to do this trick on the NET and I found the answer that Mike has reproduced the text of. I've tried in on a test route and it does work.

A route builder called Swissie on train-sim has used this effect on a tram route he has published.

All that is needed is a way of identifying the ids of a string of track pieces in the w file...and then a little utility can be written to do a mass edit.

I too can confirm it does work, and the resultant track sections still show up in AE, and will accept AI traffic.
This will be my final 'to do' action before the release of Metrolink.
Terry

[timbooth]

Tim, if the wires were at the same height and ended exactly in the centre of the rail at the exact end point i should imagine that the magnetic way the track clicks together would prevent gaps from showiing even on gradiented track.

I'm afraid not - if you apply a gradient then the shape is rotated, so the wire will move away from the join position. You can see the effect if you take two A4 sheets of paper, end to end - if you angle one so you apply a gradient, then you will see the top edge (the wire) moves away. MSTS doesn't join up vertices of joined shapes, and you wouldn't want it to as it would distort the shape.

Thats why you need to use a few shapes to gradually increase the gradient, so that the difference between the shapes is much smaller than the final gradient - so the gap/overlap will be much smaller, but you won't avoid it. Gradient changes are like this in reality, so the forces and stresses involved are reduced to acceptable levels.

If you want to have a perfectly joined up wire, you'll have to build scenic shapes with the wire build according to the gradient you need. There are advantages to this, as you can also add the gantries exactly where you want them - plus add as much electrical equipment as you want.

[m1a2lt]

Terry,

Maybe I misunderstood what was originally said many months ago, but are you saying that if you manually modify to remove the wires, it will ONLY accept AI Traffic? I'm also guessing that once you change the track pieces to static that it won't allow points to operate also. Not an SME on this, but I still go back to the road sections. What about allowing the wires to remain but have them retextured so they do not show; is this possible? Just throwing out ideas.

Andy