Carstairs split stuck

[nigeltouatievans]

Hi there - I think I'm getting the hang of driving the 86, however I'm completely stuck at Carstairs in the 'Carstairs split' scenario. I've stopped, loaded passengers and then decoupled the rear 4 coaches but then the train won't go. I tap on 'A' and the tap indicator goes up a notch, but the ammeter doesn't move and neither does the train.

I don't think I've tripped the overcurrent - the fail light, which I believe is the second one down to the right of the tap indicators, is not on, and I had no problem getting going from the previous station (Lockerbie?).

Anyone have an idea what I'm doing wrong? I've re-loaded from a save not far before Carstairs and retried and exactly the same thing happened. Clearly lots of others have successfully finished this scenario but I'm getting nowhere.

PS: I've also noticed that after re-loading a save the sun blind comes down, the tap position is lost and the reverser handle is in the wrong position (i.e. set to reverse when it should be set to forwards).

[nigeltouatievans]

Hmm, well I tried a third time and everything worked fine, so who knows if I actually did something different, or if there was some sort of bug that I avoided. Oh well, on my way to Motherwell now.

[Esurient]

Worked fine for me... Until I left the station and had a SPAD. As we're on the subject of this activity.. Anyone notice on the way to Carstairs, even if you're not at the speed limit, some of the bends are sharp and cause you to lose points on the Career system?

[coldo121]

Worked fine for me... Until I left the station and had a SPAD. As we're on the subject of this activity.. Anyone notice on the way to Carstairs, even if you're not at the speed limit, some of the bends are sharp and cause you to lose points on the Career system?

I think i had the same issue regarding leaving Carstairs, not long after you depart you reach a red signal which doesn't seem to change. After waiting for about 3-4mins i pushed "tab" on the keyboard just to see what happened and was given the all clear to pass at danger.

[transadelaide]

Worked fine for me... Until I left the station and had a SPAD. As we're on the subject of this activity.. Anyone notice on the way to Carstairs, even if you're not at the speed limit, some of the bends are sharp and cause you to lose points on the Career system?

What you need to do is learn the route and adjust your driving habits according to the conditions ... like a real train driver.

[Austcoop]

Hi,

Scenario works fine for me, although I did lose points on the sharp curves too. One issue that I do have though is the consists in career mode. Why can't we have prototypical train formations? Why are all the trains made up of uniform rakes of blue/grey Mk2s? It makes it especially frustrating when I go onto the 'Hand over' (or what ever its name is) scenario and see that the train consists in the non career mode ARE prototypical. Is this an issue that is looking at being changed?

James

[bigvern]

As remarked in the WCML thread (but buried two pages down now), this scenario has you running forward from Carstairs without a brake vehicle in the consist. Who beta tested that one?

The only signal check I had was about halfway between Carstairs and Motherwell when I had YY, Y but having dropped to 20 MPH rounded the corner to find the next one green. Guess something in front got out the way. However I was running about 7' late by then so presumably what was meant to happen at Carstairs happened further down the line.

[Esurient]

Worked fine for me... Until I left the station and had a SPAD. As we're on the subject of this activity.. Anyone notice on the way to Carstairs, even if you're not at the speed limit, some of the bends are sharp and cause you to lose points on the Career system?

What you need to do is learn the route and adjust your driving habits according to the conditions ... like a real train driver.

Yes but if the speed limit around the bend is higher than what you're actually doing, you expect it to go around fine. In real life, if the linespeed is 125mph and there is a sharp bend, the linespeed is changed, so the train go around the bend without flying off or being too sharp.

[nigeltouatievans]

I too lost loads of points on the way to Carstairs (I think my points total was just below zero after departing). I seems that there are 2 speed limits on the WCML, one for tilting stock and one for normal stock, but the F3 guide always shows the tilting limit which is going to be too high for the 86.

Not sure if driving at the lower speed limit avoid all the 'sideways' penalties or not, but will give it a go later. One problem is, as has been mentioned, there are no advanced warnings of speed limit changes, and as the F3 shows the wrong limit I imagine it could be fairly easy to get caught out.

[Kromaatikse]

FWIW, I managed to run that scenario without losing any points for passenger comfort, and arrived on time at both Carstairs and Glasgow. I'm not certain that my score was recorded though, as RailWorks locked up on the results page before showing me my ranking.

It probably did help that I had run the route beforehand with a custom scenario to learn it. Ultimately though, my technique was indeed to follow the white speed-limit signs rather than the F3 display.

[holzroller]

Haven't run this yet, carreer scenarios don't really interest me as I've been there and done that in real life. They don't reflect true life , but I also agree about unrealistic train formations, there is enough expertise available in this and similar forums, not to mention other rail sites to avoid this. At least in normal scenarios you can use RW tools, but you shouldn't really have to. I wonder if there is any chance of these scenarios being released as non-career versions, then they could be tweaked to reflect reality a little more accurately.

[transadelaide]

I wonder if there is any chance of these scenarios being released as non-career versions, then they could be tweaked to reflect reality a little more accurately.

No. If they were to release more scenarios as a free update they would be all-new scenarios, not rehashed versions of ones already included. Why would you want two copies of the same thing when you could get something different instead?

The best thing to do if the ones included for free don't meet your satisfaction would be to start making some of your own freeware scenarios from scratch.

[holzroller]

Given that I am not interested in the scenarios in career form, yes I would be interested in them being released in non-career form, as I suspect some others who are not interested in career scenarios would be. As for making my own scenarios, I have been trying with limited success in what little time work and other commitments allow, no doubt I'll get there in the end.

[bigvern]

A big route like this really shows up the relative weakness of the scenario editor. I know you can copy and paste consists (with occasionally erratic results) but some means of copying and pasting driver commands is really needed to avoid the tedium of scrolling through the map all the time.

[rich0984]

Was driving this scenario for the third time, after perfecting the 86 technique, on time and with having lost only 10 or so points then CRASH.

About a mile from Motherwell it just froze up, I am running it on my laptop, but it was fine up till this point with fps bouncing around 30ish.

I assume it was just overloaded, shame as I don't think I'll bother attempting this scenario again! Time for a beer I think . However just downloaded Keith's scenario Night Moves so may give this one an attempt as the night is young.