Banker Activity... NWE

[terrycunliffe]

For those who have downloaded.... "I told you that it was a good 'un"
For those who haven't ...."You don't know what you're missing!"
Many thanks to Paul for a great activity...
I strongly recommend you take up his suggestion of releasing the 'banker' when in View 5 mode. (Screenshot award winner, possibly )
Cheers,
Terry

[tinsley]

Being a steam/LMS fan I have most of the stock and look forward to playing this...once I've sobered totally from last night..and before another party tonight.. . I know you all feel sorry for me..
Thanks Paul.

[37413]

Tried to get up the hill with the banker on and failed miserably 6 times even with a full head of steam 220psi at the bottom of the hill. suggestions please as I hate giving into things like that.
Regards.
Alan.

[terrycunliffe]

Tried to get up the hill with the banker on and failed miserably 6 times even with a full head of steam 220psi at the bottom of the hill. suggestions please as I hate giving into things like that.
Regards.
Alan.

This is how I did it...(Automatic Fireman)
1)Connect to Banker.
2)Wait 1 minute or so to get steam up..
3) Use settings for 'normal start off'
4) 15 mph, sander on, approx 20% reverser, 50% regulator
5) At " Give it some welly" command... 100% regulator
leave sanding on until at top of bank.
I even managed to exceed 45 mph speed limit!

Easy-Peasy
Terry

[jp4712]

Alan

Before you have another go, does your 48448 have the updated .eng file? This is at file ID 1262 and makes it a slightly better steamer.

My technique was to put the regulator at 100% from the off after picking up the banker and leave it there (like Terry, I left her brewing until I got over 200 psi). After setting off at 75%, by the time I got to the 'welly' message I was down at 20%, then I applied the sander and in simple terms I increased cut-off by 2-3% for every mile an hour I lost in speed until I was at about 70-72% cut-off. My minimum speed on the bank was 6 mph and after you cross over the CLC it gets much easier.

If you slip, you've had it - you might as well forget it, so make sure changes in cut-off and regulator are reasonably smooth and keep the sanders on. I haven't played with the physics on my wagons, and according to Conbuilder the consist without banker weighs 682.8 tons.

It took me ages tinkering with adding or removing wagons to get the load at the point where the activity is challenging but possible - I didn't want it to be too easy!

Easy-Peasy
Terry

All the world loves a smartypants! Seriously, following Matt's timely seasonal reminder I'd like to thank Terry here on the forums for such a fantastic effort creating NWE, and to promise everyone else that I have plenty more NWE 'orrible activity ideas in the pipeline - shock horror, I'm even working on a modern-day one...

[terrycunliffe]

All the world loves a smartypants!

Yep!!
Seriously, Paul... Thanks for the kind words... However, in my opinion, a routes only as good as the activities written for it, and the fine models used in those activities. It is I who should be thanking you, along with the modellers, and all the other stout, upstanding MSTS guys for taking the time and trouble to write such fine "adventures" for us all to enjoy!
I really mean it when I say that I look forward to more of the same.

Cheers,
Terry

[dforrest]

terrycunliffe, I was about to reply to jp4712 thanking him also for the activities for your route, in addition to thanks to you for the route, but I see you have got in there ahead of me.

.

[bpbill]

Think the NWE route is superb (nice one terry) And always look forward to the new activities as they are released.

Only problem is I just cant seem to get the hang of driving steam trains but I'll keep plugging away at it just so I can eventually try your steam activities Paul .

[37413]

Well I finally managed it, by god that was a hard one. sweating a bit near the top of the bank down to 2mph and just managed it with a little bit of nail biting, however in saying that it turned out to be a nice activity. Thanks again to all concerned, and now going for the container activity.
Alan.

[jp4712]

[bristolian]

Hello all, perhaps you can help?...

I could not find the ex- GWR van needed for this activity. Does anybody have a copy that they might email me? (and, for that matter - the smoking brake van too. Also, as I am very new to MSTS, if I cannot obtain a certain item of rolling stock, how do I alter the activity to accept changes?

Best wishes to you all,
Bob.

we1330@gawab.com

[jp4712]

Hello Bob, and happy new year.

The easiest way - by a long, long way - to swop stock in activities is to use a freeware program by Mike Simpson called Route_Riter (UKTS file ID 2588). Once you have downloaded it, when you open it you'll see a series of tabs with 'MSTS routes utils', 'Activities/stock', 'Environment' etc. Click on the 'Activities/stock' tab and you'll see a button that says 'Check all Act.' Click it and it'll chug away for a minute or two and tell you how many engines, wagons, consists etc you have installed (quite useful in itself) and come up with a report sheet.

Go to the report sheet and browse down the table. When you see something in red, left-click it and then right-click it. Hey presto! A window pops up showing what you have available to replace it. If you click on a red consist, it'll give you a list of consists that you do have to replace it. If you have one piece of stock missing from a consist that you otherwise have everything for, select the single item in the consist and replace that. It's very intuitive once you see it.

My bag is UK BR steam era, but I've downloaded and altered loads of modern-era activities with great success due to Mike slaving over a hot PC in Oz. Thanks Mike!

One tip if you do this, though - try to replace stock/consists with something that's roughly the same size and if necessary power as what you're replacing. The size is the most important (oo er) because if you replace (say) a loose consist of small wagons in a dead-end siding with a rake of larger vehicles, you could end up with a buffer-stop collision before you've even started the activity. Keeping the power roughly the same makes the AI trains travel at roughly the same speed that the activity writer intended, so you should see AI trains roughly where they should be (or, more to the point, stops them running to times meaning that you never see 'em).

Hope that helps

Paul

[sddsddean]

More problems!! Just checking, this is the garston to wigan activity? If so when MSTS is about 1/4 way through loading the activity, I get the wonderful "Microsoft has encountered a problem " window. Any ideas how I can get it to load?

Simon

[rdawes]

I finally read this forum after stopping on the gradient, just short of the top, at least a dozen times and followed Terry's advice to make it over with only 4 mph to spare and a lot of body english plus some cheering!

I updated the eng file as instructed and didn't notice much difference but after I did it I couldn't couple up to the banker even if I smashed into it at 8 mph. It would give a couple of puffs from the stack but not couple up. With the old eng file I never had a problem. Fortunately, I had a previous save just after coupling which I was able to use to get over the hill.

This doesn't make any sense to me so I thought I would throw it out for discussion.

This was a really good activity on a great route.

Bob