Morning Mail Activity for Thames Mersey Steam Era

Lad491 · Post by **Lad491** » Fri Dec 24, 2004 2:18 am

Ive just uploaded this activity. Its a 3 hour one with a combination of high speed running with plenty of signal checks etc thrown in for fun. Pure fiction but i wanted an activity where i could thrash a kettle along at 100mph for ages, but also have some challenges too. Its time critical in many places and i have assumed that you will be running flat out whenever possible. But coal and water are limited so you must also drive economically. Ive only tested it driving one way (go for it baby:) ) so if you are too slow anything might happen.

Although I have only used the stock supplied on the CD, you will need to make a few changes to both the eng file, tender wag file and coach wag files to achieve the necessary running speeds and prevent coupler breaks. Full details of what to change are included in the readme.

Also, reading the briefing at the start of the activity always causes my pc to crash, so i have included the text in the readme file as well, so you can print that off before running the activity and then just close the window at the start if you have the same problem as me.

I hope you enjoy it. I think its great fun, but then im probably a bit biased. Any bug reports or comments here please

tinsley · Post by **tinsley** » Fri Dec 24, 2004 5:59 pm

Have just got it and will run it this evening...beats midnight mass

(no offence to devoted christians..!!

)
Instead of changing eng file you could have used a more powerful loco ..a Britannia or a Clan could have done the ton..

I'll change my consist anyway...maybe a double header...
Thanks for the effort...I'll let you know how it runs.

BTW the best 'cure' for breaks is to make sure the "damping" line is in Nm/s in eng AND wags (as per example)
Spring (
Stiffness ( 1e6N/m 5e6N/m )
Damping ( 1.2e7Nm/s 1.2e7Nm/s ) <--------
Break ( 3.2e6N 3.2e6N )
r0 ( 15cm 15cm )
Without the /s it is a force...with the /s it becomes an accelaration...as it should be

and it makes a world of difference..

Easy to do the changes with ENGMOD2 from train-sim.com..

Have a great Xmas...

dforrest · Post by **dforrest** » Fri Dec 24, 2004 6:51 pm

tinsley wrote:BTW the best 'cure' for breaks is to make sure the "damping" line is in Nm/s in eng AND wags (as per example)
Spring (
Stiffness ( 1e6N/m 5e6N/m )
Damping ( 1.2e7Nm/s 1.2e7Nm/s ) <--------
Break ( 3.2e6N 3.2e6N )
r0 ( 15cm 15cm )
Without the /s it is a force...with the /s it becomes an accelaration...as it should be and it makes a world of difference..

Easy to do the changes with ENGMOD2 from train-sim.com..

Have a great Xmas...

Surely the damping unit should be "N/m/s" not "Nm/s".

.

Lad491 · Post by **Lad491** » Fri Dec 24, 2004 10:21 pm

Instead of changing eng file you could have used a more powerful loco

True - but i liked the one which came with the default consist. In fact I wanted to use that to save on more consists, but in the end i wanted a heavier train to change the handling characteristics. All i did really was to up the maximum speed so you could run at 100mph (in fact i set it at 95mph but you can exceed that easily). The other change was to increase the steam consumption rate so that using the AI fireman the boiler pressure fluctuates as you would expect, before it just sat at 180 all the time whether you were flat out at 100mph or idling at 5mph.

Your right about the damping strength of course which should be N/m/s. I had already fixed mine using route-riter

Lad491 · Post by **Lad491** » Fri Dec 24, 2004 10:26 pm

PS .. I wont have easy access to a PC over the festive period. Any problems will be addressed on Monday late evening

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year everyone.

fatbloke · Post by **fatbloke** » Fri Dec 24, 2004 11:07 pm

Well, I obviously have to brush up on my steam driving technique. The tender coal was at 0% before I arrived at Rugby, I then broke the water scoop by lowering it too early at mp83.

I terminated the service at Nuneaton with 0% coal and 33 gallons of water.

Hey ho!!!!

Have a great Xmas all.

Gary

Lad491 · Post by **Lad491** » Sat Dec 25, 2004 7:55 am

The tender coal was at 0% before I arrived at Rugby, I then broke the water scoop by lowering it too early at mp83.

Crikey Gary - out of coal by Rugby

You should be able to get to Liverpool on the coal provided

Remember to reduce the cutoff as early as you can. I generally run at 25% from about 30mph, but you can go down as low as 15% at 100mph and you need it a bit higher for more rapid acceleration in places.

Im glad you found it a challenge, that was the intention

37413 · Post by **37413** » Sat Dec 25, 2004 12:43 pm

What sort of AI traffic is running in front of the mail train. Stuck at the station just outside Rigby Midland at 09.55.29 and cant get into the station. Tried creeping up to the signal and the reversing slightly to get the signal off but to no avail, worried about the water as I have only 17 gallons left. Is this going to be a dead duck activity, or has it been tested by others before uploading.

Alan.

37413 · Post by **37413** » Sat Dec 25, 2004 6:53 pm

Further update.
Signal came of at 10.04 after a DMU came into the platform and dissapeared. Left Rugby Midland at 10.06.55 with no water in the tender, cruised along gently expecting the activity to end and by good fortune there was an additional trough just south of Litchfield station which helped until I got to MP 148. By the time I got to Crewe I was 56 minutes down and at Liverpool Lime Street with no coal in the tender but with water to spare I arrived at 11.59.36. A good but nail biting activity.

Alan.

BobLatimer · Post by **BobLatimer** » Sun Dec 26, 2004 1:39 am

Great activity Laurie.

I too had coal problems. I was running on 0% from a few miles before Crewe but managed to keep the train moving. The crew must have been shovelling all the coal dust they could find into the firebox.

Couple of strange things happened. I suspect it was probably because I tried to run it through in one session. I did save now and then but didn't back out of MSTS and then reload a saved game.

When I got to Crewe it looked like there had been an avalanche of ashes or something. It covered the track in places but I managed to drive through it. At one of the small stations between Crewe and Liverpool, an AI train had lost a coach and it was lying across the track, derailing me.

One thing I discovered early on was that the drive wheels on the compound seemed to be going a lot slower than they should, so I had to fiddle with the two wheel radius entries in the .eng file to get them looking right. Anyone else have that problem?

Lad491 · Post by **Lad491** » Sun Dec 26, 2004 8:36 am

Alan - You must have been going too slow since you should get the path ahead of the DMU. I usually arrive at Rugby a couple of minutes before the stated time. You had obviously missed your traffic slot. If you miss your traffic slot lots of unpredictable things will happen. The activity has been extensively tested and I hope you never get a"dead duck" from me

but as I did say, Ive only tested it one way, going flat out when i could

Bob - Glad you liked it. I noticed the wheels problems as well but didnt know how to fix it. It didnt bother me too much though. Ive had funny missing texture problems as well occasionally, especially near Liverpool, and ive put that down to my PC. At other times it runs fine.

It seems that once the coal reaches 0% steaming just carries on as normal and you dont actually lose steam. Anyone know how to fix that?

I haven't seen the crashed AI train in testing, I'll watch out for that.

37413 · Post by **37413** » Sun Dec 26, 2004 9:16 am

Laurie.
Probably when I was sitting just outside Rugby station I was frustrated with a red light so dont take anything about dead duck activitys. Now that more lnformation has been said about the activity I will be running it again. I ran the train most of the time around 80 mph on the 100 mph parts but maybe I should go faster. For those people who have not done it yet remember the additional water trough just outside Litchfield (cant remember the mp number. As an activity writer myself I know the amount of work that goes onto these activitys. and this is a good one. Laurie look forward to your next one.

Alan.

Lad491 · Post by **Lad491** » Sun Dec 26, 2004 2:33 pm

I ran the train most of the time around 80 mph on the 100 mph parts but maybe I should go faster.

Yes you should certainly be going much faster. You should accelerate up to or just below 90 mph from Watford Jct up to the 80 mph restriction at Leighton Buzzard and then 99 - 100 mph for the final leg to Rugby. If you were only doing 80 ish then you would have been along way outside your slot by the time you got to Rugby. The timings assume you will be running close to flat out as much as possible, signal checks and water troughs excepting.

Deltic9000 · Post by **Deltic9000** » Sun Dec 26, 2004 7:26 pm

Laurie.

I've had a problem getting this to run, I'm afraid.

After opening the activity in the editor to resave out of date services, I was getting a coupler broken alarm after 7 seconds - without moving! I also had the crashing on reading the activity briefing.

After much fiddling with the coupling settings (I'd already changed things as suggested in the readme) I managed to get it stable enough to go to an outside view, only to find the engine and stock looking rather strange; with additional items that were not in the consist.

At this point I checked the Traffic Pattern, to find there was a service duplicating the player's 08:00 sevice - it was spawning on top of the player consist. Once I removed the duplicate I managed to get it to start - and the crashing on reading the briefing was cured as well.

So far, I've only got as far as Watford, but I think everything's OK now!

[Edit] I'm now at Rugby with no problems, 11 mins down after running on yellows most of the way from Roade Jct.
I'll report back once I've finished.

fatbloke · Post by **fatbloke** » Sun Dec 26, 2004 11:11 pm

Laurie

I had a nother go today, albeit in three stages.

Got to Rugby 2 minutes early with 9% coal remaining
Coal ran out just before Polesworth
Activity ended with ran out of fuel message a couple of miles beyond Crewe.

I did notice that my steam generation rate started to fall dramatically not long after leaving Crewe and as soon as it hit zero the actrivity ended.

I'll have another go tomorrow and see how I get on.

Gary