Fag Packet HST Add-on from RS.com

[JasonM]

Cant believe after all this time the HST's still have the rear power cars not making much noise by default, surely they could of been corrected by now as it does not take much doing as Mr Armstrong knows.

[phat2003uk]

Thanks Richard, will that fix the silent rear car?

It will at least give the rear power car an idle sound but it won't make it rev up. Unfortunately that requires more comprehensive editing of the engine blueprint.

[nelson]

Thanks again Richard.

[Kromaatikse]

Another quirk of the RailWorks physics model is that tractive effort automatically falls off - over and above the normal rolloff you would expect - in the 10mph above the "maximum speed" setting in the blueprint. So if this is set to 125mph in the HSTs (I don't know if it is...), then I'm actually rather impressed to see even 134mph on the clock.

So now I'm going to have a go with a bare pair of power cars..

[stuart666]

Another quirk of the RailWorks physics model is that tractive effort automatically falls off - over and above the normal rolloff you would expect - in the 10mph above the "maximum speed" setting in the blueprint. So if this is set to 125mph in the HSTs (I don't know if it is...), then I'm actually rather impressed to see even 134mph on the clock.

So now I'm going to have a go with a bare pair of power cars..

This would be interesting to see.

It does make me wonder what interaction Carriages have with locomotives. Are they all modelled correctly weight wise, and is there any capacity for any selection in the future of the number of people actually in them? I would assume that it would have limited effect on later Diesel Locomotives, but clearly the lighter carriages of the steam age (even BR mk1s were heavier than the late GWR Hawksworths) means this could have a major effect on steam locomotives. Be nice to be able to select how well loaded your wagons might be. At the moment its just full or empty, it would be good to have variety. Id be surprised if in the steam age every wagon or van went out fully loaded.

[msey0002]

In real life, a pair of HST powercars are not allowed to go over 75mph due to breaking issues, I heard

[malkymackay]

It does make me wonder what interaction Carriages have with locomotives.

It would appear that the number of carriages on the back of a loco makes a difference. While writing scenarios for the Newcastle - York route, I noticed an impact on the timings of services, using the same performance value, if I added a few more coaches on. I found it very hard to reach the the real world timings with a very heavy booked load ( 15 bogies), but if I knocked it back to 12 or 13 it was more reachable.

[Kromaatikse]

Well I can definitely see the braking problems - I reached 141.3 mph with the pair of power cars, but then completely overshot the platform at York which I was aiming for (just 20 minutes after leaving Darlington - I'd set up a "liver run" type scenario). It is, after all, 150 tons of vehicles with only 8 axles' worth of brakes, with the brake force dictated by cooling requirements rather than axle load.

Based on the speed reached, I would hazard a guess that the maximum speed of the blueprint is in the region of 135-140 mph.

[transadelaide]

It does make me wonder what interaction Carriages have with locomotives.

It would appear that the number of carriages on the back of a loco makes a difference. While writing scenarios for the Newcastle - York route, I noticed an impact on the timings of services, using the same performance value, if I added a few more coaches on. I found it very hard to reach the the real world timings with a very heavy booked load ( 15 bogies), but if I knocked it back to 12 or 13 it was more reachable.

There would be some impact on the top speed of a heavier consist, but the main impact would be on acceleration because carriages do not contribute to tractive effort. Try this out for yourself by creating three consists in a free roam scenario for some crude performance trials - a Class 37 with 5 mark 2 carriages just outside York, an extra 5 mark 2 carriages to attach at Northallerton and an extra 5 mark 2 carriages at York. Time how long it takes to reach 75mph from a standing start and the maximum speed reached in that distance. Also try comparing the % of throttle needed to maintain 75mph on flat track and you will see that the inherent friction of the coaches is indeed modelled.

For a more extreme case, try dragging some of Oovee's TEA tanker wagons with a Class 37 (a very lightweight and low-powered loco designed for running light trains) and then compare with using a more appropriate Class 66 (designed to haul what are big loads by UK standards) for the same task!

[Wikkus]

I can't believe there's discussion going on about something that's been there since day one in RS days

Rik.

[stuart666]

Id noted that more carriages affect acceleration and top speed since I hung too many DT mk1s on the back of a class 25 in Railsimulator days OTOH, from whats said the modelling is clearly rather more accurate than Ive given Kuju and latterly RS.com credit for. I guessing weight per car plus full passenger load is the measure usually applied? Thats an area Id like to see improved, either a random calculation per car or perhaps the ability to input how many are sitting in it, ie either full, or an old dear with 2 jack russell terriers. Alright I exaggerate, but something other than either full or empty might make the driving more interesting.

Has there been any improvement when it comes to wheelslip? I note that in the physics forum some of your guys were noting that driving wheel is still noted as being the leading axle, whatever it is. Whilst that makes sense for many diesels, for steam locos I can see it causing trouble for anything other than a 060.

BTW, congrats on the HST record. OTOH, you did it the Soviet way, IE cheating by not hauling anything!

[transadelaide]

Id noted that more carriages affect acceleration and top speed since I hung too many DT mk1s on the back of a class 25 in Railsimulator days OTOH, from whats said the modelling is clearly rather more accurate than Ive given Kuju and latterly RS.com credit for. I guessing weight per car plus full passenger load is the measure usually applied? Thats an area Id like to see improved, either a random calculation per car or perhaps the ability to input how many are sitting in it, ie either full, or an old dear with 2 jack russell terriers. Alright I exaggerate, but something other than either full or empty might make the driving more interesting.

Well there is already a slider that allows the fuel load (and water for steam engines) to be selected in 10% increments. Perhaps future passenger and freight releases could have this kind of slider adapted for load use as well. Then using shift-T could be added as a control option for unloading all passengers as you would do at a terminus station, with T being retained for a usual pickup where it would be filled up to the slider level set in the editor. I'm guessing an HST Standard class carriage would weigh about 40t empty and seat about 80, so the difference (assuming average passenger of 75kg) would be roughly 6t, a quite meaningful difference. If they were 80 Americans the difference would be roughly 12t, which is even more significant as three carriages of them would equal nearly an extra empty carriage!

[stuart666]

Well there is already a slider that allows the fuel load (and water for steam engines) to be selected in 10% increments. Perhaps future passenger and freight releases could have this kind of slider adapted for load use as well. Then using shift-T could be added as a control option for unloading all passengers as you would do at a terminus station, with T being retained for a usual pickup where it would be filled up to the slider level set in the editor. I'm guessing an HST Standard class carriage would weigh about 40t empty and seat about 80, so the difference (assuming average passenger of 75kg) would be roughly 6t, a quite meaningful difference. If they were 80 Americans the difference would be roughly 12t, which is even more significant as three carriages of them would equal nearly an extra empty carriage!

80 Americans each with a Jelly Doughnut? To go off topic, there was an aircrash in the US about 16 years ago that apparently was due to the average weight size having increased over the years since they had done the study. 20 people x average weight, = significantly overweight. The same wouldnt happen of course with a train, but it does indicate that perhaps an element of randomness might be a good idea.

The idea about a slider is a good one. If when starting the game you could then have some kind of idea given about the amount of tons you were hauling behind you, you would also then have an idea about the likelyhood of wheelslip. It was the first thing they read when they took over a steam locomotive, the estimated weight of the train behind the locomotive.

[Wikkus]

The idea about a slider is a good one. If when starting the game you could then have some kind of idea given about the amount of tons you were hauling behind you, you would also then have an idea about the likelyhood of wheelslip. It was the first thing they read when they took over a steam locomotive, the estimated weight of the train behind the locomotive.

Now that we appear to be fully off-topic...

If not a slider, certainly a degree of randomness would be a neat feature and potentially increase the "re-play value" of what would otherwise be scenarios that few would revisit once they'd played them through once.

Similarly, another "massive-change-necessary development" would be to see random freight consists, i.e. set an upper and a lower threshold for weight for the train (or maybe a train length...) and have the AI compose a "custom" train for you.

In my own drug-fuelled* fantasy, I'd see the dispatcher as a kind of TOPS system wherein it creates work orders and what not, classes the trains by load, destination, etc.

{sigh}

Rgds,

*Lemsip, caffeine...

[stuart666]

The idea about a slider is a good one. If when starting the game you could then have some kind of idea given about the amount of tons you were hauling behind you, you would also then have an idea about the likelyhood of wheelslip. It was the first thing they read when they took over a steam locomotive, the estimated weight of the train behind the locomotive.

Now that we appear to be fully off-topic...

If not a slider, certainly a degree of randomness would be a neat feature and potentially increase the "re-play value" of what would otherwise be scenarios that few would revisit once they'd played them through once.

Similarly, another "massive-change-necessary development" would be to see random freight consists, i.e. set an upper and a lower threshold for weight for the train (or maybe a train length...) and have the AI compose a "custom" train for you.

In my own drug-fuelled* fantasy, I'd see the dispatcher as a kind of TOPS system wherein it creates work orders and what not, classes the trains by load, destination, etc.

{sigh}

Rgds,

*Lemsip, caffeine...

Stick with the caffine, there are some interesting ideas there.

Anyway, thanks again to RS.com. Nice livery, nice sounds, nice scenarios. Nice work.