Forgotten Idea?

[choccy]

I seem to remember in the early days of MSTS someone suggested placing platform markers in freight yards and at other convenient locations. If this is done it means that trains can be halted at various locations around the route (using the properties/passengers option) without disappearing. So while you are shunting in a yard a freight train could arrive, another could leave etc (though it would hog the signals at the beginning of its path from the moment of its creation).

I dont think route authors have utilised this idea very much if at all and while it's easy enough for many to do themselves, activities couldn't be uploaded on this basis. There would of course be no physical platforms, just platform markers that would be readily visible in AE.

Mark

[micksasse]

Interesting point - funny, you posted this at much the same time as my query about how not to have AI trains disappear on you... Great minds...

[TractorBasher]

Perhaps it was your post that reminded him of this.

[saddletank]

It would require modifying the wag file of one wagon so it became a passenger coach, but worth a try.

[ThamesClyde]

It could also be used to simulate passing points like the TRUST system we use on the real railway, eanbling you to check wether you had dropped anytime on route. I did try this on the S&C 1930 by placing Platform Markers at all the key junctions and a W.T.T for my particular freight train was produced.It fell apart somewhat when I tried to make calling at each location down to a few seconds so as not to stop. I might try some more experiments.

[micksasse]

Mind, it's one of the fundamentally bizarre and generally . features of MSTS that you can't write a timetable for a freight train, meaning that working timetables are an impossibility! If this basic problem could be solved, all would be much easier... do American freight trains really run in such a random way?

[saddletank]

In the US the cab crew and the dispatcher in his tower are in 2-way radio contact all the time. I feel sure there is a timetable for freight but a lot of ad-hoc patching type work goes on as well.

But if you did proper freight turns in the UK the player would be sat eating his sandwiches in a siding for an hour or more at a time while waiting for a path.

[thenudehamster]

In the US the cab crew and the dispatcher in his tower are in 2-way radio contact all the time. I feel sure there is a timetable for freight but a lot of ad-hoc patching type work goes on as well.

And in the old days before radio, the engineer would actually be given written orders at every station (or depot); there was a little ducket window which projected out to the trackside from which the orders would be passed. Bear in mind that centralised signalling and remote controlled turnouts were almost unknown on most US railroads, simply by virtue of the comparatively enormous distances involved, so different practices evolved to cope with the different situation. Timings, I think are there, but they are very vague - he who gets there first probably gets the road in most cases.
It's odd that in both UK and US practice, the real revenue earning trains (the freights) were fitted in where they could among the less profitable but more glamorous pasenger services.
As for the realisation of freight operations in the simulator, hark back to its inception. The only line which had freight operations programmed for it was the Marias Pass, and that had no passenger operations in the sim (and few in real life). It was ideally suited to the US style of operation, so in true M$ fashion, why go to the extra trouble of programming UK practice into something it wasn't designed to handle - and what does this little island matter in the great US scheme of things anyway?.

[saddletank]

That's an interesting explanation, Barry, as to maybe why there is no freight on the default S&C or Austrian route. Or Amtrak trains on Marias. Makes you wonder how much pressure the Kuju route teams were under if the simulator was effectively built around the routes in the box.

[tinsley]

I read recently that if you write the line PassengerCapacity (1)
in the eng file (Try in the first block of data.) the timetable function would work as it triggers the platform markers...you understand what I mean. ...worth a try

[ThamesClyde]

I might give that a go and if it works i might place platform markers at key locations to enable timetabling for freight trains

[saddletank]

Promising, please report back with your results.