When creating scenarios in timetable mode, there are two options for adding vehicles to your consist - the front and the back.
Which is the front?
If I am driving a light engine, is the front of a steam loco the smokebox end and if so, does this change if the loco is running tender first. Is the front of a diesel where the driver is placed in railworks, or the No.1 end (traditionally on BR the radiator end I believe). What if I leave a yard light engine, run down the line for 10 miles and then set back up a branch line for another ten miles to pick up my train - what was the front of my consist (eg the loco) is now the rear so I add vehicles to the rear... or is it still the front?
Confused - me too!
Which is the front?
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FoggyMorning
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Re: Which is the front?
With steam locos, the smokebox end is the front (I'm not sure what you'd do with a double Fairlie! 
) and with diesels/electrics it is the end at which the driver icon appears. The front and back are "fixed" when it comes to adding coupling instructions in the editor.
Steve
) and with diesels/electrics it is the end at which the driver icon appears. The front and back are "fixed" when it comes to adding coupling instructions in the editor.Steve
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Kromaatikse
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Re: Which is the front?
A double Fairlie would behave the same as a diesel in Railworks, in this respect. One end is arbitrarily but consistently chosen as the front, and the other end is the back. In practice the driver and fireman stand either side of the firebox, with their various controls arranged for their specific convenience. To drive "backwards" the player would just have to turn the camera to face the other way.
Diesels with two cabs always land the player in the front cab, even if the first instruction involves driving towards the rear. In practice diesels have a "number 1" and a "number 2" end, and multiple units have a "A" and a "B" or "D" end (depending on which railway). MUs however tend to have at most one cab per vehicle, so simply placing the driving vehicles the right way around will allow the train to be driven "forwards" in either direction. BUT: the train as a whole inherits the forward/backward directionality from the vehicle with the driver icon. So if you turn around an MU at a terminus, even though you are staring out of the "front" of the "leading" vehicle, that is still the "rear" of the train for Railworks' purposes, which affects whether to use G or Shift-G, Tab or Shift-Tab, and whether to couple to the front or rear of your train.
Normal steam locos in Railworks always have "front" towards the smokebox, for both tender and tank locos. To drive tender or bunker first, just turn the camera around or use the head-out view. Shunters are arranged analogously, with the "front" being towards the radiator and the "back" being at the cab end.
The Class 20 is deliberately arranged the opposite way, with the "front" being the cab end, so that a typical pair coupled nose-to-nose can be driven like a normal two-cab diesel. This works very well as a pair of 20s is more powerful and has more tractive adhesion than a single 37 or 47, and also has the redundancy of two engines to make a failure in traffic much less likely. Pairs of 20s were very often used on nuclear flask trains for a long time.
Diesels with two cabs always land the player in the front cab, even if the first instruction involves driving towards the rear. In practice diesels have a "number 1" and a "number 2" end, and multiple units have a "A" and a "B" or "D" end (depending on which railway). MUs however tend to have at most one cab per vehicle, so simply placing the driving vehicles the right way around will allow the train to be driven "forwards" in either direction. BUT: the train as a whole inherits the forward/backward directionality from the vehicle with the driver icon. So if you turn around an MU at a terminus, even though you are staring out of the "front" of the "leading" vehicle, that is still the "rear" of the train for Railworks' purposes, which affects whether to use G or Shift-G, Tab or Shift-Tab, and whether to couple to the front or rear of your train.
Normal steam locos in Railworks always have "front" towards the smokebox, for both tender and tank locos. To drive tender or bunker first, just turn the camera around or use the head-out view. Shunters are arranged analogously, with the "front" being towards the radiator and the "back" being at the cab end.
The Class 20 is deliberately arranged the opposite way, with the "front" being the cab end, so that a typical pair coupled nose-to-nose can be driven like a normal two-cab diesel. This works very well as a pair of 20s is more powerful and has more tractive adhesion than a single 37 or 47, and also has the redundancy of two engines to make a failure in traffic much less likely. Pairs of 20s were very often used on nuclear flask trains for a long time.
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