A Drivers Day - for London and South East

Lad491 · Post by **Lad491** » Fri Mar 04, 2005 8:16 pm

Currently in production is the first part of what i hope will be a set of activities to form a drivers day for a Class 33 driver based out of New Cross Gate. The first activity will be a two part freight activity starting at New Cross Gate and ending at Tonbridge going by way of Redhill. AI traffic started off being exactly from the timetable, but there were so many timetables to refer to for that area and so little traffic about in the early hours, that as usual i have padded it extensively to make it more interesting. Its now undergoing tweaking and testing and im trying to think of ways to make it more interesting as its pretty boring in sections at the moment.

So the purpose of this thread is to let you know whats coming up soon, ask what you would like the second activity to feature? It must be using the Class 33 as motive power and start from Tonbridge at about 08:30am. Other than that im open to ideas. Train rescue crossed my mind, rail tour or special of some kind, more freight - if so what and where too. I dont know what has already been done.

If you have a wish list for this line post it here and i'll see what i can do. There will be three or four activities eventually to make up the set.

spikeyorks · Post by **spikeyorks** » Sat Mar 05, 2005 12:12 pm

Don't do an excursion as I have "Countryside Alliance" well on the way to completion and that is a CL33 Double Headed Activity (see in the Screenshots forum).

Also be very careful around South Croydon - West Norwood as it is very easy to have too much going on at the same time and the whole activity crashes (in my case some 90 minutes in) which is a bit of a b*gger !!!

Mind you you could have your CL33 resucing a steam excursion. That would be different. (Use the Schools off Kim.Sim that's a nice loco).

buffy500 · Post by **buffy500** » Sat Mar 05, 2005 2:30 pm

Could you two not get together ?
And do combined activities ?
ie 1 act involves driving the train which breaks down, and the second is rescuing the same train...

Lad491 · Post by **Lad491** » Sat Mar 05, 2005 7:37 pm

Thanks for your information about your excursion activity David - i'll scrub that off my list - at least until i see yours when i can decide if i can go another route and be different or not

Thanks also about the tip regarding South Croydon - West Norwood. Fortunately the first is set at 6am and passes that area around 6:30am when there isnt a great deal of traffic. It seems to cope with two up and a down service in that area at the same time ok.

Buffy - i'll think about your idea although i have to say i generally prefer to work alone. That way if something doesn't work out to my satisfaction i can drop it without impacting on others.

Its likely to be a few weeks before i start on part two i think anyway as im having a few problems with part 1 at Reigate / Redhill Quarry. I wanted to post a help message on the MT forum but ive screwed up my user name and password there. Waiting for a reply to my e mail to the contact us address (hint, hint

)

buffy500 · Post by **buffy500** » Sat Mar 05, 2005 8:50 pm

Lad491 wrote: I wanted to post a help message on the MT forum but ive screwed up my user name and password there. Waiting for a reply to my e mail to the contact us address (hint, hint )

Not got it yet.

Lad491 · Post by **Lad491** » Sun Mar 06, 2005 9:17 am

Strange - sent it at 10:55 on the 5th to support[at]makingtracks-online.co.uk.

I know NTL have been having some e mail problems and mail is taking a while to be delivered sometimes - last weekend it was taking 3 days

maybe its got held up somewhere.

Lad491 · Post by **Lad491** » Tue Mar 08, 2005 8:09 pm

The activity is now in final testing. Would have been uploaded tonight except that i broke a coupling (duh!!! ) on the final run through so need to run it again tomorrow to check the ending still works as planned.

Maybe tomorrow evening .........

Lad491 · Post by **Lad491** » Wed Mar 09, 2005 8:34 am

Ive just uploaded the first activity in this set. Drivers Day 1 - To Redhill and Tonbridge. As usual any feedback, comments or bug reports here please.

Lad491 · Post by **Lad491** » Fri Mar 18, 2005 7:31 am

BUMP

No comments yet

I assume everyone is busy with YCR, or maybe you thought it was rubbish

If you didnt like it please say so as it'll save me wasting time on the other planned activities in the set.

The second in the set is currently too short and im trying to think of ways to extend it a bit, ive also had to go back to work now

so i dont have much time in the week now to work on it. But its coming along.

phil45110 · Post by **phil45110** » Fri Mar 18, 2005 5:02 pm

Finished it yesterday evening

About 15 mins late at Tonbridge, but thoroughly enjoyed it. More of the same please

Lad491 · Post by **Lad491** » Sat Mar 19, 2005 7:31 am

Thanks for the feedback Phil. Glad you liked it.
Im hoping to do some more work on number two this weekend

thames · Post by **thames** » Mon Mar 21, 2005 5:48 pm

Hi Laurie. have just fin activity 8 min late at Tonbridge, on second go.

On 1st go had to wait at Red sig at Godstone for about 3 min, then had broken coupling at Edenbridge. After applying your fix, and then run again and all ok.

Keep them coming.

Lad491 · Post by **Lad491** » Mon Mar 21, 2005 8:23 pm

Thanks for that Andy (not heard from you for a while

) Glad you managed to complete it ok. I was getting coupler breaks every time at Edenbridge before i tweaked the strengths, I suspect because its a very heavy train and you are still going slightly uphill at that point.

Number two in the set has just had a complete path re-write to allow following services to overtake you and slow you down, thus making the activity a bit longer, but now i have a standoff at sevenoaks i didnt have before - so that needs another look. At the moment I also only have a couple of hours a week for activity writing and one test run just about uses that up. Still it is making progress.

DarrenCarter · Post by **DarrenCarter** » Tue May 10, 2005 12:37 pm

Just to put a spanner in the works. I've managed to get to the station where i will be uncoupling my banking 33 after altering the wagon coupling parameters due to them breaking at the point entering the station. But having overcome that problem the semaphore home signal at the end of the platform is green until i go past it where it turns to red on me and gives me the old "activity ended ignored red signal". I have tried deleting the signal and replacing it in the route editor but the same thing happened again. Any Ideas.

Lad491 · Post by **Lad491** » Tue May 10, 2005 4:17 pm

I suspect that maybe you are stopping a shade too far forward, past the signal or right up to it. When you uncouple you might be rolling back a tad and losing the path. As you have already passed the signal your second attempt produces the error. Should be no need to change the signal position - i wouldn't know how to anyway

.

Try stopping an engine length before the signal. (The banking engine should just be on the platform, literally right by the slope) Uncouple and then continue on your way through the green. No one else has reported this problem and the activity was subjected to many hours of testing before uploading.

In case anyone was wondering whats happened to the rest, the second in the series was almost completed before i was sidetracked onto another project. I still plan to return to the remaining 4 activities in due course - maybe by Christmas

Atomic Systems

A Drivers Day - for London and South East

A Drivers Day - for London and South East

Signal turning red at passing