Atomic Systems

The signal of the PRR were a bit querky, plenty of info here:

http://www.railroadsignals.us/signals/pl/pl.htm

Chris.

jimmyshand wrote:Whilst we're on the subject of US railroads, seems a timely point to ask what on earth is the crack with the signals on Horseshoe Curve?? What the heck? Are they prototypical? Throughout a whole scenario I had no idea if I was clear to proceed or about to fuse faces with the driver of a tweny trillion ton freight coming the other way! All I could (barely) see on each signal was strange rows of grey dots and coupled with no AWS then I was an accident waiting to happen!! I guess they're in a manual somewhere but as a seasoned train-simmer I don't expect to struggle to understand or see signals, they're usually similar in nature globally and generically understandable, but not those on HSC!

If real US signalling is as poor as that then I won't be in any rush to hop aboard a train next time I'm stateside, there must be a crash a day with those things!

When I'm driving a UK train in RW, much as it is in real life, then it's literally a case of hurtling along looking for greens, ambers or reds and listening for AWS bells and reacting to AWS horns. Green for go, amber for caution and red for stop. Easy peasy even at 125mph, big shining coloured light you can see for miles, my 6 yr old daughter even gets it and can more or less drive a train safely! I genuinely had no idea what I was looking at signal-wise when trundling along at 40mph on the Horseshoe, what do those rows of hard to see dots mean?

I gotta agree with you there. I don't get those at all! The US has a lot of different signalling types. I think we only have one along CROR standards. http://www.tc.gc.ca/media/documents/rai ... tco093.pdf

Yep, those are the famous Pennsy signals. They were used by others as well, and make sense once you get used to them. I think it was a very nice touch for RW to get those right.

Since jumping into this sim earlier this year I have come to appreciate railroading in the UK, Germany and the US far more than I ever did before- my limited body of knowledge was pretty much what was happening here in Canada (from day one in history lessons it always seemed the importance of the CPR to the building of our nation was a focus) and that in itself was limited to heritage trains, and some trips when I was young. I'd love to see Rogers Pass modelled or even a good old prairie route. Montreal Locomotive Works steam engines from the '20's/'30's would be very nice.

That said, I'd also love to see something from France and the rest of Europe. Australia would be sweet as well, and I imagine New Zealand has some very scenic railways (hobbits aside)...so much track, so little time ^.^

I just love railroading as presented by this sim, no matter where it's from.


Kind regards,
Dave

The UK needs more steam engines, but everywhere needs more steam engines. Looking at the available UK stock and routes I honestly can't see how anyone can say we're being stiffed with a straight face. I'm all for more US ( I went asking for plans for a large US steamer that would have made our Mr Churchward happy to see recently ) and absolutely all for more anywhere else too - I bet there's some fantastic African routes, or S. American, or Indian, Russian, the potential is enormous.

I'd have thought that the inhabitants of a country with so many global connections would have happily taken an interest in elsewhere's, but I guess there's always a few.

I think it's up to the third party developers to produce stuff for the rest of the world, rather than it simply being RSC's responsibility. Perhaps that is already the case, and the releases just happen to come officially approved and under the RSC banner...

Leaf85 wrote:

I imagine New Zealand has some very scenic railways (hobbits aside)...so much track, so little time ^.^

Kind regards,
Dave

Taieri Gorge in the South Island ? ... No Hobbits here tho ( those few who travel beyond the southern border of the shire never pass the haven of artistic excellence in the great north land )

.

Must admit initially I was a bit "yikes" when I saw the fairly big change over to pushing US content... but that lasted about ten seconds before I got real.

It's a change, it's different, but it's still trains, so does it really matter?

Most people that make models railways tend to have a particular era, a particular area, a particular line in mind (or some combination) and limit themselves to enjoying that. On dads layout he has gone for a generally "kinda" 60's UK feel, but with nothing that really screams UK in particular. Regularly in service on the layout are TGV's, Acela's, ICE 3's, Australian Indian Pacific, a Great Northern train (I think it's a geep or something), even the main track maintenance train (has the track cleaner car and hoover car behind it) are made up of a bright yellow (Chessie) GP38 and two German wagons

In the UK we've had a highly exclusive focus on us for a long long time now starting back with Rail Simulator. Here we are, we get to the fourth edition of that base product and now things have changed a bit, but what does that really mean? Not much, let's be honest, so the background sounds have changed (I didn't like the old ones and was far more glad they had changed to *anything else*) and the loading images are different (seriously, that's all you got to complain about...). There's a new UK route on the way (Woodhead), and there was a new UK train in TS2012. We've had tons of new content coming out, and frankly, i'm quite intrigued to see what's coming and i'm very much enjoying the change of scene!

There's still tons of UK stuff to use, i'm sure more will come out too, nobody took that away.

My son LOVES running the NEC. He wants to switch his scale modelling over to n-gauge next year and has already given me the list of trains he wants for his next who-knows-how-many-birthdays-and-Christmases. So far, I don't see a british train on the list (Eurostar is French ). Mostly American and Japanese (what can I say, he's a lead-foot driver ). He still enjoys the british stuff a lot, plays WCML and other routes in TS2012, but has developed his interest globally. Like I said earlier, it's all trains. We're train enthusiasts and that means all trains.

Anyway, bottom line, if it bothers you then chill out. In a few years it might be totally Japanese focus and then you can join with some Americans in feeling thoroughly put out, while the rest of us enjoy more trains

Sorry if this post offends, but frankly some of the stuff i've seen has bordered or even crossed thoroughly in to xenophobia, something that there is no room for, not just in this forum but in this modern globally connected world.

Matt.

If you look in the Tutorials section, there is an extra tutorial which walks you through the basic PRR signal aspects. It would have been nice for these to be detailed in the manual as well.

However, here are the basics:

1) The signal that applies to you is always just to your right. Yes, this means that many sidings do not have signals protecting them from the main line. From those sidings, you will be told to proceed by radio (that is, message box).

2) The top head is usually the only one lit. Vertical means green, diagonal means yellow, horizontal means red. The modern upgrade of the same signals (now used on NEC) keeps the light arrangement but also colours them accordingly.

3) If the bottom head is also lit, it usually gives a slightly more permissive meaning to the top head. So horizontal plus something means proceed very cautiously. Diagonal plus something means proceed at reduced speed. Fortunately HSC uses nowhere near as many combinations as NEC does.

andynwt wrote:I think it's up to the third party developers to produce stuff for the rest of the world, rather than it simply being RSC's responsibility. Perhaps that is already the case, and the releases just happen to come officially approved and under the RSC banner...

Must admit mate that was my line of thinking too. MSTS had massive UK coverage but it was nothing to do with Microsoft and 100% all to do with 3rd party developers picking up the baton.

Railworks has been a different story altogether, a British company producing the core game and also producing lots of British DLC content. There has undoubtedly now been a shift towards America, am I pleased about that? categorically no. My heart says "get your own companies to start building your American content, there are enough of them for crying out loud and hands off our RSC!!" My head however clearly recognises that RSC are desperate to 'break America' in order to tap into the US market and thus grow their company and who can blame them? They are a commercial company out to make money after all. Would I prefer it if RSC stayed as a small UK company churning out UK content? undoubtedly yes I would. There are still thousands of miles of UK railway adventure still crying out to be covered by high quality payware including classics like the West Highland Line, Liverpool and the north west, Cambrian Coast, North Wales Coast, Trans-Penine, The Highland Mainline, Exeter to Plymouth, Plymouth to Penzance to name just a few. There are also still dozens of classes of loco to be produced and maybe some older ones to be revisited and brought up to the latest standard. As an example I'd have willingly paid for the new 47 upgrade such is the high standard.
RSC were supposed to be releasing a Class 33 in the summer but it never materialised and has gone completely off the radar. It seems RSC have taken the decision to let "other" developers cover the UK gaps whilst they go off in pursuit of the American dream. That to me is a loss for us because RSC produce some of the best quality DLC that there is.

jimmyshand wrote: RSC were supposed to be releasing a Class 33 in the summer but it never materialised and has gone completely off the radar.

Derek posted yesterday pointing that the Class 33 is coming soon, one of the next 4 instalments of UK content. He said:

TBA Project
Class 33
King
Woodhead Route

Darpor wrote:

jimmyshand wrote: RSC were supposed to be releasing a Class 33 in the summer but it never materialised and has gone completely off the radar.

Derek posted yesterday pointing that the Class 33 is coming soon, one of the next 3 instalments of UK content. He said:

TBA Project
Class 33
Woodhead Route

I stand corrected on the Class 33! Although it's hardly been making headlines has it?

Still would like to see Classes 73, 87, 90, 91, 92, 58, 81-83. There's also nothing wrong in my book for RSC to release loco's that have already been done by someone else, I'd love to see an RSC version of Classes 24-27 for example. An RSC 56 would also be great.

It stands to reason though that RSC has matured as a company and is no longer content to plod along supplying niche loco's to a limited UK market. They have grand ambitions and that means tapping into the bottomless pit of the USA. Can't help but feel that the bubble has burst just a tad too soon for us in the UK though, because as I've pointed out, there is still a plethora of stock and routes left uncovered. 3rd party development is painfully slow, particularly on the new routes front. The release of TS2012 and all it's changes will surely only serve to increase the complexity and delay in 3rd party development. The only people who have mastered the trade are currently primarily focused on the USA, bummer if you've no interest in that scene.

Well we know that at least two of those are in development (Class 90 by Oovee and Class 91 by Ben Laws/RSC).

I find it interesting that people are saying "the bubble has burst" when there are still multiple British projects underway at RS.com, before you even consider the many other high-quality sources of British content. The ratio of new British content to new US content from RS.com seems to be about equal at the moment, which is still a disproportionately huge amount of British content if you look at it from a world perspective.

In any case, if the new US content is a sales success it will end up that the US content subsidises the British content. The British users win either way.

USRailFan wrote:Class 91 by Ben Laws/RSC

And IrishRailGuy is working on the full 225 set.