Ffestiniog & Welsh Highland Railways 2020

[ttjph]

I found Uphill Chuff with one of the 'ladies' to be a nice challenge in terms of boiler and water management. I did it on my first try, but there isn't a lot of spare water and a heavier train (or not filling at Minffordd) would make it very hard.

I nearly stalled on the way to Minffordd, but gradually got the hang of it after that! It needed fire kept close to optimum, use of the blower as a trimming tool, and sensitive use of reverser and throttle to keep her running at maximum efficiency.

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[ttjph]

My 6-year-old trainee fireman did a pretty good job too!

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[xguerra]

Good news everyone!

I've given Steve the values to change in the blueprint to fix the collision/water issues and just this evening he's repackaged the locos and reuploaded!

Invalid File ID [39436]

Please redownload and check that I have got the fixes right.

Note that because the water capacity has increased, for Free Roams you will have to go into the editor and reset the starting water level on the loco, and in scenarios such as Uphill Chuff you could probably refill with water at Port or along the way and it will return to 200 gallons, or by all means go into the editor to reset the water level if you're confident.

[rabidcirquefan]

Thank you gents for the lovely work! I just want iterate that I *love* both of these locos (and the route) and hope I didn't cause any consternation. A great addon is now even better. Off to give the ladies a spin!

[rabidcirquefan]

Well unfortunately the bump n' stop problem hasn't seem to have gone away. I tested Blanche with a down service but actually had more trouble than usual with some of the tight curves in the route.

The first 11 or so minutes of this video illustrate the problem between Tan Y Bwlch and Plas Halt. https://www.facebook.com/streamlinerstr ... 7304085221 (no Facebook login required to view).

Of note are Blanche struggling badly on both ends of the Tan Y Bwlch bridge; and a few instances throughout where the bogies on the observation car appear to shake and wobble, especially around curves; and occasions when the engine spontaneously bucks itself up and down in a dramatic manner, despite being on level track. Before today's patch I could pretty quickly get the train back up to speed after these slowdowns, but as of today I had a harder time getting the locomotive rolling again. Hopefully you can find the video useful for diagnosing the issue.

[xguerra]

Rats! Sorry about that.

I was completely on the wrong track. I've looked again and I think it's the fact that the coupling pivot and contact point are in exactly the same place.

I've uploaded a hotfix to UKTS, in the meantime download from GDrive and please let me know asap if this has finally solved it. You extract the folder "Assets" from the .zip and then copy/replace in your Railworks folder
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1Mps4e ... G6pB1rvBVO

Invalid File ID [39438]

[DavidLloydGeorge]

Hi Xavier,
Glad to report that after a down trip with Blanche the issue is hugely less severe. Thanks for the fix. Occasionally when hitting a slight bump in the track the speed drops by up to 0.8 mph. This is hardly noticable and the loco doesn't stop whilst this happens. Also, no derailments! I can now do a full down trip without stopping every few minutes and without running out of water! Many thanks to you and Steve!

[rabidcirquefan]

Thanks a lot for the quick updates. The latest brought some positive and some negative. Blanche ran remarkably more smoothly and had no trouble at all with the TYB bridge or most of the curves between TYB station and Plas Halt.

But we weren't out of the woods yet. The train still slammed to a near-stop on one curve, with the observation car shuddering on its bogies (if you watch the linked video in this post, this happens at 5:30). A short while later, below Plas Halt (9:15 in the video), the train slammed to a complete stop, but this time, I couldn't get it restarted at all. Weirdly, on a downhill gradient at 0 throttle, the train tried to roll itself uphill. I uncoupled Blanche from the consist, and found she was able to move fine on her own. I reattached the consist and then was able to easily restart. But then disaster struck a little later (14:40) - Blanche violently bucked herself near a curve and then derailed. I admit I was going *slightly* fast, but I don't think I was going fast enough that I should have caused a derailment. If you watch the video carefully you'll see that Blanche bucks and then derails - not toppling over on her own.

The video is at

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I suspect that the most recent physics fix did solve the cornering and buckling problem for Blanche, but maybe there's another issue in the rolling stock files or the tenders. Only a suggestion, not criticism in any way.

[xguerra]

Yeah, I don't understand why this is happening.

I've now attempted some further adjustments but they've only made the problem worse.
The problem is I don't have any of Steve's source files so it's hard to visualise where these invisible parameters are.

[maxtedrw]

Have you checked the front bogie ? Looking at the video that looks like the sort of thing I had on Atlantic and Skylark with my back bogie when running backwards. It was a pivot point problem but I can't for the for the life of me remember what the issue was in more depth.

Does it only do it with that coach ? Any bogie coach / as a light engine. I really suspect this is either a pivot point or bounding box issue on the couplings.

[xguerra]

Have you checked the front bogie ? Looking at the video that looks like the sort of thing I had on Atlantic and Skylark with my back bogie when running backwards. It was a pivot point problem but I can't for the for the life of me remember what the issue was in more depth.

Does it only do it with that coach ? Any bogie coach / as a light engine. I really suspect this is either a pivot point or bounding box issue on the couplings.

Everything I've done so far has been bounding boxes on the couplings and the loco as a whole, which seems to have made some positive effect but not enough. Seems to be any coaches but faults with the coaches can be ruled out as they work fine with a Fairlie, England or Garratt.

I imagine then it's probably to do with where the bogie pivots are. However I'm reluctant to fiddle about with the pivot positions without Steve's input as I don't know exactly where the centrepoint is on the model. My guess is it is about halfway between the two driving wheels, which are non-articulating but have their own bogie blueprint anyway. The other blueprint is for the 2-wheeled pony truck.

[maxtedrw]

<Axle>
<cBogeyBlueprint-tag_sAxle d:id="61196456">
<Radius d:type="sFloat32" d:alt_encoding="00000040C494D03F" d:precision="string">0.25908</Radius>
<HorizontalOffset d:type="sFloat32" d:alt_encoding="00000060F93AEA3F" d:precision="string">0.819699</HorizontalOffset>
<NodeId d:type="cDeltaString">bo01wh01</NodeId>
<AnimationId d:type="cDeltaString"></AnimationId>
</cBogeyBlueprint-tag_sAxle>
<cBogeyBlueprint-tag_sAxle d:id="185423">
<Radius d:type="sFloat32" d:alt_encoding="00000040C494D03F" d:precision="string">0.25908</Radius>
<HorizontalOffset d:type="sFloat32" d:alt_encoding="00000060F93AEABF" d:precision="string">-0.819699</HorizontalOffset>
<NodeId d:type="cDeltaString">bo01wh02</NodeId>
<AnimationId d:type="cDeltaString"></AnimationId>
</cBogeyBlueprint-tag_sAxle>
</Axle>
I thought I remembered this problem. I had a feeling that I had needed to create double axle bogie so that the pivot point sat between two wheels Bogie bo01wh01 is a dummy and bo01wh02 is the actual wheel. May be worth looking in the bogie blueprint and seeing what happens if you add a matched second axle

[markpullinger]

Possibly need a dummy wheel on the tender?

[xguerra]

Possibly need a dummy wheel on the tender?

I don't think the tender is an issue since it's no different from what was used for the England locos. And also these behaviours don't crop up when the loco is running tender behind as opposed to tender leading.

I think Richard is right and perhaps the problem stems from the pony truck blueprint.

[markpullinger]

Where is the dummy wheel for the front bogie - has it gone outside the bounding box?